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THE EXPANSION 



OF THE 



\.MEEICAN PEOPLE 



SOCIAL AND TEERITORIAL 



BY 

/ 

EDWIN ERLE SPARKS, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PKOKKSSUK UF AMKKICAN HISTORY, THE UNIVKRSITY OF CHICAGO 



CHICAGO 
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

1900 



82379 



Library of Conqresa 

Iwo Copies Received 

NOV 30 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 

Oe)iv«red to 

ORDErt DIVISION 

DEC 13 isao 



M 






^ 



COPYRIGHT. 1900, BY 
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 




PRHSS OF 

THK HKNKV O. SHHPARU CO. 

CHICAGO. 



TO 

KATHARINE 

MV FAITHFUL AMANUENSIS 

l^XDKR PKRMAXKXT KX«A(tKMKXT) 



CONTENTS 

Chattkr Paoe 

Introduction 9 

i. prepara.tion of europe in the fifteenth cen- 
TURY FOR Expansion IT 

II. Spain in the Western Expansion ... 25 

III. Alien Peoples in the English Colonies . . 36 

IV. Life in the English Colonies in America . 48 
V. Life in the English Colonies in America — (Con- 
tinued) 60 

VI. The French-English Struggle for the Missis- 
sippi Valley 69 

VII. National Boundaries and the Public Domain . 78 
VIII. The Beginnings of Kentucky and Tennessee . 88 
IX. The Beginnings of Kentucky and Tennessee— 

(Continued) 98 

X. Organization of the System of Public Lands 104 

XI. The Peopling of the Northwest Territory . 118 

XII. Journeying to the Ohio Country . . . 13.") 

XIII. Pioneer Life in the Ohio Valley . . . 149 

XIV. Evidences of the Higher Life of the People 159 
XV. The National Seat of Government . . .175 

XVI. The Pressure on the Southwestern Boundary 

Line 188 

XVII. Taking Official Possession of the New Ter- 
ritory 200 

XVIII. Rounding out the Gulf Possessions . . 211 
XIX. Assimilation of the Frontier French Element 220 
XX. The Evolution of the American Frontier . 238 
XXI. Communication and the Expansion of the Fed- 
eral Union 249 

7 



CONTENTS 



XXII. The Cumberland National Road and the Erie 

Canal 259 

XXIII. Steamboats and Railroads in the Middle West 270 

XXIV. The Middle Period of Intellectual Growth 290 
XXV. The Oregon Expansion 301 

XXVI. The Acquisition of Texas 310 

XXVII. The Conquest of Upper California . . 324 

XXVIII. Gold, the New Factor in American Expansion 33G 

XXIX. The Struggle for Kansas and Nebraska . 351 

XXX. A Transcontinental Railroad . . . .306 

XXXI. Seeking Utopia in America .... 376 

XXXII. Seeking Utopia in America— (Continued) . 389 

XXXIII. American Reforms and Reformers . . 402 

XXXIV. Increase of Well-Being Among the People . 419 
XXXV. The Beginnings of a Colonial System . 429 

XXXVI. Sudden Expansion of the Colonial System . 439 

Index 451 



INTRODUCTION 

Expansion is a necessary law of human develop- 
ment and progress. It must be assumed in the 
common explanations of man's creation. If mankind 
originated from one species or in one place, there 
must have been dissemination, growth, and expan- 
sion. The earliest glimpses show activity, change, 
and migration. This expansion would naturally 
extend in concentric circles or equally diverging lines 
from the common place of origin if surrounding con- 
ditions were the same. But even the primary divi- 
sion of the globe into land and water is a disturbing 
factor in this outward movement. 

A body of migrants, for instance, meeting the 
ocean or what is to them an impassable sea, is 
diverted into a new line of travel, or further progress 
is barred until necessity, aided by constant contact 
with the water, has persuaded them to venture on its 
trackless waste. In the same way mountains may 
change direction of migration, or a lofty chain compel 
a halt of decades until passes are discovered or roads 
constructed. 

Wanderers may chance upon a particularly fertile 
valley where nature suiDplies their wants in return for 
a minimum expenditure of labor. Agriculture arises 
and supplements or replaces the earlier occupation of 
herding. Another group may by some accident learn 



10 INTRODUCTION 

ta simple use of the mineral treasures hidden in 
mother earth and a rude development of arts and 
manufacture arises. Flint for arrowheads, jasper for 
axes, or native copper for sheathing may make a per- 
manent residence of what was but a' temporary halt- 
ing place. 

Climate must also be reckoned among these deter- 
mining causes. An attractive hillside in the early 
year becomes a bleak and barren spot in autumn ; a 
valley enchanting in the rigors of winter becomes 
unendurable in the heat of summer. Springs and 
brooks, affording water and food at one season of the 
year, are dangerous at another season from malaria. 
To such disturbing influences must be added plenty 
or scarcity of food ; distribution of trees and game ; 
chance droughts or floods. Any one of these reasons 
may cause divergence from direct routes of migra- 
tion. 

But the one cause which has determined the lines 
of migration and place of settlement more than 
another is the influence of tribes and nations upon 
each other. The primary law governing man is the 
same as that governing the lower animals ; namely, 
the survival of the fittest. It is persistent, relentless, 
and savage, until it is tempered by the higher senti- 
ments of civilization and the accompanying forms of 
religion. 

This law is rarely seen in our present life — usually 
only in war and in certain commercial restrictions ; 
but it prevailed in the earlier and lower life of man. 
The general struggle for existence is now rendered 
easy for any one willing to labor. Indeed, society 



INTRODUCTION 13 

Yet we shall find here the same general laws. The 
same purposes, instincts, weaknesses, and nobler 
qualities will hold as in other lands only to a more or 
less marked degree according to the environment and 
the consequent development. The poet recognizes 
this general similarity when he says : 

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the 
suns. ^ 

And our own poet shows that even the savage Hia- 
watha partook of the nature common to man : 

— In all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not.- 

The study of the ''increasing purpose" of men in 
^'' is new world should not be conducted from one 

indpoint or along any one line. It is a great mis- 

ke to think that all history lies between the lids of 
government reports or is made in the city of Wash- 
ington. The visible government is but the dial plate 
on which is registered the movement of the i»nside 
machinery driven by the heart-beat of the people 
chemselves. Statesmen listen eagerly for the voice of 
"^he people, and that president who can best prophesy 
what the people will think and want is given the 
highest praise for political acumen. 

We often speak of the expansion and growth of the 
government. It is true that the number of senators 
and representatives has been increased from time to 

'From Tennyson's " Locksley Hall." 
2 From Longfellow's "Hiawatha." 



I 



14 INTRODUCTION 

time, but that is simply because the people by their 
westward expansion have created new states. Sec- 
tion after section of the continent has been acquired 
and, as fast as sufficient population warranted, new 
states have been erected on perfect equality with the 
older ones. Territorial expansion has thus produced 
political expansion. 

The study of the expansion of the American people 
must not be confined to territory. Trade, invention, 
the arts, education of the masses, the comfort of the 
people, the aim and scope of the church, the ideals 
of citizenship and good government — all these have 
expanded with the increase of territory and popu- 
lation. 

Trade is the universal prophet of civilization. It is 
the all-powerful incentive to action. Trade is ever, 
hungry for more. It expands, and it creates new 
peoples. It breaks through its barriers on the line of 
least resistance. This has been generally on the 
western side. Hence the expansion of trade and 
civilization has been toward the west. Columbus in 
seeking a western passage to India and the American 
people in crossing the continent from east to west are 
simply parts of the whole movement. It is as much 
of a mistake to think the discovery and settlement o- 
America abnormal as to think that man's ultimate 
ends were thwarted or disturbed by finding the way 
to India blocked by a new world peopled with 
savages. 

For centuries, perchance since creation, God had 
caused this continent to lie fallow for a new people. 
Its virgin soil accumulated the richness of ages of 



INTRODUCTION 15 

vegetable decay and stored up the heat of myriads of 
sunny days. Hints of the mineral treasures of mother 
earth were thrown out by the long-continued action 
of the elements. Its forests reached proportions of 
untold possibilities. This wilderness is now become 
a vast garden wherein ncAV peoples, ideals, arts, 
inventions, and literature are to be propagated and 
eventually to be carried on to India and the east. 
The civilization which we are sending by means of 
missionaries, teachers, physicians, electricians, and 
in the form of inventions is not the civilization 
which Columbus would have carried to the east, but 
infinitely higher and better. God's final purpose is 
being fulfilled. As Walt Whitman says : 

Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first ? 
The earth to be spann'd, connected by network, 
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, 
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near, 
The lands to be welded together. ^ 

Westward ho ! is, therefore, the watchword of 
American expansion from the early morning when 
Columbus sailed his caravels from Palos out into the 
unknown west even to the early morning four cen- 
turies later when the American war vessels steamed 
into Manila harbor in the known east. The student 
of this westward expansion will see the people, fever- 
ish, restless, yearning, driven onward from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific. Under stress of accumulating popula- 
tion, barrier after barrier will be swept away and 
territory after territory added to the domain. Indians, 
French, and Spanish will be driven from the way or 

^ From Whitman's " Passage to India." 



16 INTRODUCTION 

absorbed. Political power will gradually move with 
the people until the election of 1860 brings the presi- 
dency to Illinois and the campaign of 1896 a candidate 
for the presidency to Nebraska. 

The interior conquest of the country being now 
complete, the frontier disappears, and the hunger for 
land and trade brings this isolated and peaceful coun- 
try into a foreign war and the world's councils. The 
inciting cause is an uncongenial neighbor, who, after 
having been gradually pushed off the western main- 
land, must now be driven out of the hemisphere. The 
cycle of inter-continental expansion having ended, the 
era of extra-continental expansion is thus inaugurated. 
Whether for better or worse, the United States finds 
itself entering on the old-world policy of external 
possessions. The verdict lies sealed in the hand of 
time. But the success of the past is the hope of the 
future. 



The Expansion of the American People 

CHAPTER I 

PREPARATION OF EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 
FOR EXPANSION 

It is difficult to imagine the limited conditions sur- 
rounding European life in the fifteenth century. 
Each little community was isolated. Travel, save 
expeditions of war, was rare, and maps were simply 
locations of castles, and worthless as guides. There 
was almost a total lack of the world's cooperation 
and feeling of comity which mark the present age. 
The simple needs of daily life were supplied by the 
surrounding fields and forests. Novelties of food, 
raiment, or utensil were exceedingly uncommon. The 
churchmen pored over their manuscripts and kept 
alive the feeble fiame of education. Written books 
were slightly known to them and unknown to the 
mass of the people. Recorded history was confined 
to Europe and Europe was confined to narrow lines. 
On the north was the frozen ocean ; on the east was 
the Turk ; on the south was the burning desert of 
Africa ; and on the west was the great unknown Sea 
of Darkness. Commerce, the arts, learning — all were 
lost in the universal wars. War was a trade, serving 

17 



18 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the only otlier occupation — world politics. In the 
preceding century the church had found it necessary 
to interfere by means of the so-called ' ' Truce of 
God," which allowed, people less than one hundred 
days in the entire year for killing each other. ^ 

Soon this military zeal was to become the servant 
of the church in the Crusades or Holy Wars, which 
were begun in order to drive the infidel Turks out of 
Palestine and so free the sepulchre of Christ from 
their polluting hands. Christians going on a holy 
pilgrimage to- the tomb had been scourged and robbed 
by these Mohammedans. All over Europe went the 
returned palmers bearing in their hands palm 
branches from the east as proofs of the pilgrimages 
which they had made. This sacred token entitled 
them to entrance to the hearthstone, where they 
showed their scars and the wounds inflicted upon 
them in the land hallowed by the footprints of the 
Man of Peace. Was it possible that God was pleased 
with such a state of affairs ? Was it not the duty of 
man to endeavor to correct it? "God wills it" was 
therefore the cry which greeted the preaching of 
Peter the Hermit.^ Upon every right arm was 
placed the holy symbol of the crucifixion of Him 
whose desecrated tomb they now attempted to recover. 



^ The truce forbade under church punishment all quarrels during 
church festivals and from every Wednesday evening until the fol- 
lowing Monday morning. 

2 Peter tlie Hermit, a native of Picardy, France, was commissioned 
by Pope Urban II. to preach a crusade against the Turks. He was 
supposed to have acquired Divine favor by his austere manner of 
living and vast crowds attended his preaching. In 1096, he led an 
impatient throng on an unprepared crusade toward Palestine which 
failed utterly. 



PREPARATION OF EUROPE FOR EXPANSION 19 

If the purpose be judged by the result, it was not 
the will of God that Jerusalem should be taken and 
held by the Christians. The armies of knights, bow- 
men, and spearmen, which marched to the Holy Land 
from all parts of Christian Europe, could make no 
permanent stand against the swarms of fanatical 
Turks, which came in ever-increasing numbers from 
the parent hive in Arabia. But those who believe in 
finding the will of God working through a larger series 
than a single event are able to find the final fruition 
of the Crusades in the effect they had on Europe. 

It was true that after the Crusades were over the 
Turk still held the sacred tomb. He still reared his 
ugly head as master of the East, impregnable alike to 
Christian warfare and Christian civilization. But 
the expeditions which the Christians made against 
him had left a lasting impression upon themselves. 
Never again could Europe be the same. During the 
Crusades its people had built vessels and had crossed 
the inland seas.. They had tasted new foods and seen 
new garments in the east. These they craved after 
returning home. Trade and commerce were ex- 
tended. The nobility had iDcrished in large numbers 
and the common people began to get the first 
glimpses of their rights. Democracy or the rule of 
the people reddened the sky with the prophecy of her 
coming dawn. So much warfare had caused the 
invention of new engines of battle, and especially an 
explosive powder for the guns, called gunpowder. 
War was never again to be a holiday excursion of 
tournaments and lances. Life assumed a new value 
in the presence of such destructive force. 



20 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Contact with each other had brought about a new 
feeling of comity among the nations. They had been 
engaged in the same cause, had endured the same 
hardships, had shared the same victories and defeats, 
and had learned to a certain extent each other's lan- 
guage. Hereafter there must be visiting and travel- 
ing and intercourse. What would interest one would 
interest all. The world began to narrow and men's 
ideas to widen. It was certain that the memories of 
the feats accomplished in the Crusades would remain 
to be told in song and story and to stir men's blood. 
Hereafter adventures and deeds of daring would be 
more common. Men were preparing to sail and 
"wrest the secret of the skies." Trade would 
demand expansion and bold hearts would not be 
wanting. 

An incitement was soon found in far Cathay. For 
a hundred years following the conquests of Jenghiz 
Klian,^ Cliina had been open to the Europeans. The 
period afforded but a glimpse of a land of almond- 
eyed, pig-tailed people, eager to learn the ways of the 
Westerners, and possessed of certain arts and manu- 
factures unknown to Europe. Tradition said that it 
was from them that the Arabians had learned the art 
of the suspended magnetic needle which points so 
invariably to the north. The Crusaders had gained 
knowledge of its use from the Arabians and the tradi- 
tion but whetted the appetite for further information 
concerning this unknown land and people. From the 



1 A Mongol who conquered northern China in 1215. Also spelled 
Genghis, Cliinghiz, and Jingis Khan, 



PREPARATION OF EUROPE FOR EXPANSION 21 

Khitai rulers the country had received the name of 
Cathay/ 

Thus curiosity was added to the natural desire for 
trade with this far land and its better known neighbor, 
India. But the Turks had broken up old lines of 
travel to the east and stood in the way to Cathay. So 
pent up, the boiling caldron of Europe was now 
ready to overflow in expansion. If the Turk could 
not be overcome or puslied from the way, he might be 
circumvented. Surely there was some way around him. 

The burning south was more inviting for this 
attempt than the frozen north, since it afforded at 
least navigable water. At intervals adventurous cap- 
tains had crept down the west coast of Africa and had 
learned of tlie treasures of the Gold Coast ^ which the. 
caravans of the desert carried to the coffers of the 
infidels. The attempt to secure these riches for the 
Christians brought at once the suggestion of continu- 
ing the journey down the African coast in search of 
some passage to the east. 

From his student's cloister on the barren rock of 
Sagres in southern Portugal, supposed by the old 
Greeks to be the end of the world. Prince Henr}^ of 
Portugal ^ sent out his brave navigators on these 

' Poets still refer to China as Cathay. For instance, Tennyson in 
" Locksley Hall" says: 

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

2 A name applied generally to the coast along the Gulf of Guinea 
because of the discovery of gold. Later it has been used to desig- 
nate one colony on that coast. 

^ The fifth son of John I. of Portugal. Devoting himself to the 
study of astronomy and navigation, he retired to his observatory on 
the southwest point of Portugal, where he died in 1460. There is a 
monograph on his services in the Report of the American Historical 
Society, 1892. 



22 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

southern voyages. He was the Grand Master of the 
Order of Christ and his captains and sailors were 
moved hj religious as well as worldly motives. 
Visions of riches ample enough for another Crusade 
filled their minds and strengthed their hearts as they 
pushed down past the dreaded Cape Non (Latin — not), 
so-called from the proverb, "Whoever passes Cax^e 
Non will return or not.^'' Under the same inspiration 
they ventured out to the Madeiras and sailed down 
past Cape Bojador/ In order to save the heathen 
whom they found along the African coast they 
brought back to Portugal some of them, who were to 
be converted and returned as missionaries. But a 
covetous spirit prostituted this lofty purpose to human 
slavery. Later, the equator was crossed, the Ca]3e 
Verde Islands were visited, and the lower Congo was 
explored. These achievements took many years, and 
it was twenty-six years after the death of Prince 
Henry before Bartholomew Dias^ and his shij)mate 
Bartholomew Columbus ^ rounded what they called the 
Stormy Cape, but which upon their safe return was 
renamed the Cape of Good Hope.* 

Notwithstanding these triumphs in the south, 
Europe still stood with her back to the west and her 

^ An unimportant cape of northwestern Africa, but believed by 
the sailors to be inhabited by some evil spirit which caused the 
tumultuous waters usually encountered there. 

- A Portuguese navigator who rounded the southern point of 
Africa and who would have pushed on to India had not his sailors 
refused to go farther. He was lost in the later expedition whicli 
gained Portugal a foothold in South America. 

^ Bartholomew was one of the brothers of Christopher Columbus 
and his companion and assistant in much of the great Christopher's 
career. 

*The southern point of Africa. 



PREPARATION OF EUROPE FOR EXPANSION 23 

longing gaze turned to the east. The passage to 
India had not yet been found. The earth might 
indeed be a fiat surface so far as the knowledge then 
gained was concerned. Wise men had held since the 
days of Aristotle ^ that the form of the earth was 
round. Ptolemy'' and Roger Bacon ^ strengthened the 
theory. But a long time is required for wisdom to 
pass from philosophers to sea captains. The common 
people were grossly ignorant and superstitious. To 
the west stretched what they called the vast Sea of 
Darkness. The venturing seafarer would probably 
find an edge over which he would tumble to unknown 
depths. There certainly was a hill in the sea since 
ships sailed down over it out of sight just as a vehicle 
disappeared over a hill on land. The only chance of 
a vessel ever coming back up the hill was the fortune 
of a stern wind sufficiently strong. A calm would 
mean delay and starvation. 

There were other dangers in this western ocean. 
Tradition told of islands peopled by dog-faced men, 
by man-eaters, and places inhabited only by women. 
Sirens lured vessels on dangerous rocks and floating 
islands menaced navigation by refusing to remain 
where they were charted. Fish and water serpents 
reached a dangerous size, often plucking sailors from 
their vessels. It was recorded that on a voyage of St. 
Catharine a gigantic fish came up under one of the 



lA Greek philosopher (born 384; died 322 b. c). His books on 
natural science were used as text books in the Greek schools. 

2 A celebrated astronomer at Alexandria in the first half of the 
second century a. d. His "system" or theories held to the time 
of Columbus, over twelve hundred years. 

^ An English philosopher or scientist of the thirteenth century. 



24 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

vessels one day and lifted it entirely from the water. 
The sailors took the unexpected opportunity of land- 
ing and an altar was set up on the back of the fish 
where the services of the church were performed. 

Ptolemy had supposed that to the east of Cathay 
there lay a vast land ' ' full of reedy and impenetrable 
swamps." But Marco Polo ^verified a rumor that 

the land had 
an end in that 
direction and 
nothing but 
water met the 
eye beyond. 
This was the 
exact appear- 
ance in looking 
west from Eu- 
ro p e . East 
from Asia — 
water; west 
from Europe 
— water. It is 
impossible t o 
say what mind first sprang to the conclusion that if 
tlie world be round then the two bodies of water 
must be the same, and, being crossed, tlie globe would 
be circumnavigated and a western passage to India 
be found. 




ILLUSTRATION FROM " PHILOPONO'S VOYA(JEs' 



^ A Venetian traveler in the east whose adventures are well 
worth reading. He vras one of the first Europeans to enter China 



(about 1270). 



CHAPTER II 

SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 

Many feverish captains now turned their finding 
eyes into this Sea of Darkness, but one only had the 
lofty purpose, perseverance and courageous will power 
necessary to put his theory into execution. Whether 
Christopher Columbus gained his idea of the western 
continuity of the water between Europe and India 
from his brother, Bartholomew, who had rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope, or from the map of the astron- 
omer, Toscanelli,^ is not important. The map had 
been constructed according to the estimates of the 
best geographers, but they erred in supposing the 
circumference of the earth to be but twenty thousand 
instead of twent3^-five thousand miles. Of this cir- 
cumference six-sevenths were thought to be covered 
by the continents and islands, leaving not much more 
than 2,500 miles to be sailed over from the Canaries 
to the wonderful island of Cipango "^ (Japan) off the 
Asiatic coast. In truth, from Spain to Japan was not 
much short of ten thousand miles. 

^ Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer, made the map used by- 
Columbus on his first voyage. He had died ten years before the 
voyage was made. Justin Winsor's ' ' Narrative and Critical His- 
tory of the United States," Vol. II., contains a history of map 
making at this time. 

2 Marco Polo had heard from the Chinese of a wonderful island 
lying off their coast named Cipango or Zumpango. It was custom- 
ary to represent it on the maps as a large square island among the 
thousand islands with which that part of the ocean was supposed 
to be dotted. 

25 



26 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Religious feeling was one of the prime incentives 
to action in Columbus. If he could discover this out- 
ward way to the Indies, he saw himself loaded with 
riches which he would use in renewing the Crusades. 
He pledged all the gold he should find to the use of 
the church and added to his prayer, "Surely under 

these condi- 
tions God 
will g r a n t 
my prayer." 
He always 
claimed that 
charts and 
compasses 
had nothing 
to do with 
the case; 
that he had 
been led by 
God's hand 
across the 
pathless wa- 
ters.' 

Peril aps it 
was this faith which sustained him throughout the 
thirty-seven days which it took to sail his three caravels 
over the 3,230 miles from the Canaries to the Bahamas. 
This faith kept his eye on the west whenever he was 




THE WESTERX WORT.D AS IT IS ("HEAVY tlNES) AND AS 
COLUMBUS THOUGHT IT WAS (LIGHT LIXES) 



^Inapoein called " The Praj'er of Columbus," Walt Wliitman 
has well preserved this high purpose of Columbus, M'hich unfortu- 
nately was not carried out. Winsor's " Cliristopher Columbus" 
deals very justly with him. Lowell's "Columbus" makes a 
personal application of his example. 



SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 27 

tempted to turn back. His vessels were small, their 
length being but four times their breadth, their sails 
were low set, and their unsheathed hulls offered an 
easy prey to the Avorms of the tropical seas. The 
ninety persons on the three vessels were insufficient 
for a meeting with pirates, but too many should con- 
trary winds delay the vessels beyond the three months 
for which they were provisioned. 

The crews had been gathered in Palos ^ with great 
difficulty amidst the wee^Ding of women for relatives 
and sweethearts destined to be swallowed up in the 
Sea of Darkness. As inducements to enlist, jails 
were opened and debtors forgiven. Mutiny was bred 
in such a crew before a sail was hoisted. But super- 
stition works strongly in such minds. A shooting star, 
a wreck of a mast floating by, a mirage — all conspired 
to quiet concerted mutinous movements, although it 
was probably only the conviction that Columbus 
alone could guide them back to Spain which saved 
his obstinate head. He, himself, had enough to 
occwpy his mind in the inexplicable variation of the 
magnetic needle.^ There might be another pole or 
twenty poles, rendering the compass useless. Then 
came the marvelous sea of weeds, ^ which might con- 



^ Palos was a seaport on the southwest coast of Spain and a natural 
starting point for expeditions to the west. From it Pizarro and 
Cortez also sailed. Its harbor is now filled with sand. 

2 The line of no variation of the magnetic needle passes from north 
to south through the Atlantic. On the European side navigators 
were accustomed to have the needle point a little to the right of the 
"north" star. Hence the alarm of Columbus when it gradually 
swung over to the left of the star. 

^The "Sargasso Sea" is simply a quiet place between the great 
ocean currents in the Atlantic. Sea-weed grows on the unmoving 
surface and accumulates in tangled masses, which retarded the 



28 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ceal dangerous ledges of rock or which might entwine 
itself about the ships and hold them, leaving the 
helpless crews to perish of madness or hunger. The 
steady trade wind was also a source of amazement to 
one familiar with the varying breezes near the coast. 
When Columbus at last set foot on land it was the 
first one of many triumphs which have marked this 
new world. It was a victory of mind over matter, of 
persistence over obstacles. 

What faith in man must in this new world beat 
Thinking, how once he saw before his face 

The West, and all the host of stars retreat, 
Into the silent infinite of space. ^ 

Columbus went to his grave ignorant of the fact 
that he had discovered a new world. ^ He supposed 
that he had missed Japan but had landed among the 
islands of India and hence called the inhabitants 
Indians. Across his passage to India a continent 
had arisen which would probably have prevented his 
setting sail if he had known of its existence. But the 
civilization which he would have carried to India was 
simply delayed on the unknown continent until it has 
reached a beneficence and utility undreamed of hj 
the navigator of Genoa. ^ 

Exploring expeditions subsequent to Columbus 

progress of the caravels. There was a rumor of an " unsailable 
sea" to the west and the sailors sujiposed tliey had reached it. 

^ From the Century Magazine, May, 1893. See also Sidney 
Lanier's " Psalm of the West." 

- It should be said tliat this point is in dispute among historians, 
but it is stated strongly here since the impression prevails so widely 
that Columbus started out to find a new world instead of anothei 
way around to the old. 

■''Whitman has expanded this thought in his "Passage to India." 



SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 29 

were simply rounding out the expansion which he 
had inaugurated. The Spanish spread over the 
islands and connecting lands between the two con- 
tinents of America. They occupied all of South 
America, except Portuguese Brazil. They took pos- 
session of the region on the north and west of the 
Gulf of Mexico. 

John Cabot, a geographer of Venice, five years 




THE TWO TYPICAI- PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS * 

after the first voyage of Columbus, in the name of the 
King of England planted a large cross with the flags 
of England and St. Mark on the northern mainland, 
perhaps near Hudson Bay. The next year his son, 

* There are scores of portraits of Columbus, but no one can be 
3rified. They may be grouped into two distinct tyi>es, the one 
aown as the "Marine," from the painting in the Marine Museum 
"t, Madrid. The other, or "Dutch"' type, is not so generally used 
ir illustrations. It maybe represented by the portrait in De Bry's 
"oyages, published about 1590. 



30 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Sebastian, claimed to have sailed along the Atlantic 
coast from that point as far south as Florida/ 

Forty-two years after the first voyage of Columbus, 
Jacques Cartier,^ a French sailor, following the tradi- 
tional fisherman's track toward the fishing banks, 
sailed about the island of Newfoundland and entered 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which he supposed led to 
Cathay. On another voyage the following j^ear he 
reached the present site of Montreal. The French 
were thus given the northern portion of the continent. 

Cabral, of Portugal, chanced upon the Coast of 
Brazil and laid the foundation of the very short- 
lived claim of the Portuguese to that country.^ 

Thus by the chance of wind and wave, aided to a 
slight extent by the mariner's compass, representa- 
tives of the four leading nations of Europe had been 
cast upon a new world. Italy gave birth to several 
of these courageous captains,* but when they sailed 
they were merely hired men. The flag of their coun- 
try never flew from their mast heads and Italy never 
gained a foothold in America. Fortune had smiled 
especially upon the Spanish, the French, and the 

^ The discoveries made by Cabot and his son, Sebastian, are not 
clear, but on them England based her claims to all the land be- 
tween 34 and 45 degrees north latitude. She later extended her 
claim down to 31 degrees. 

"Cartier was born the second year after the first voyage of 
Columbus. He made three voyages to Canada in the interest of his 
native France. Some French writers base the claims of their 
country on Verrazano, instead of Cartier. 

^Sailing to India around Cape of Good Hope, Cabral kept far out 
into the Atlantic and touched the South American coast in what is 
now Brazil. He later completed his journey to India, but his acci- 
dental landing in America gave a claim for tlie Portuguese, which 
was sustained by the Pope. 

* Not only Columbus, but also Amerigo Vespucci, Verrazano, and, 
probably, John Cabot were Italians. 



SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 



31 



English, and had granted vast possessions and untold 
opj)ortunities to them in this greatest expansion in 
recorded history. 

But it was not likely that they would prove con- 
genial neiglibors, especially in a new land where the 
customary laws of society must largely disappear. 
Civilization had turned backward toward a state of 
nature. The old law of the survival of the fittest 
would be apparent. In 
the coming struggle each 
nation must depend upon 
its fitness and its fitness 
would be determined by 
the standard of its past 
life. 

Portugal in a few years 
passed temporarily into 
the hands of Spain and 
so may be eliminated. 
Whilst other nations were 
extending their territory, 
France was engaged in 
her long and bloody re- 
ligious wars. When Louis 

XIV. at last turned his attention to America it was 
only to attempt to transplant thither a feudal colonial 
system and a bigoted church, equally out of place in a 
new world. He had allowed the more advanced 
English to assume too great proportions, as we shall 
ee. 

At first sight Spain would seem to be the power 
estiiied to survive. She first amono; the nations 




^Spanish 

mil FRENCH 

IPORTUOOESE 

I English 



MAP ILLUSTRATING THE EARLY PARTI- 
TION OF AMERICA 



32 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

planted her flag in the western land and she extended 
its sway with marvelous rapidity for three-quarters of 
a century. The eight hundred years of war with the 
Moors ^ had given her the energy to do this. . But her 
climax had been reached. She was exhausted eco- 
nomically by the war and, still worse, the moral spirit 
of her people had been reduced by it. Despoiling 
the Moors had made brigandage legitimate. Long 
contact with an enemy had engendered "Spanish 
cruelty." The employment of the conquered Moors 
in common labor had brought labor into contempt. 
The introduction of African slavery was now easy.^ 

Further, the Moorish wars had kept Spain from 
taking part in the Crusades and getting their broad- 
ening influence. Otherwise slie might never have 
used the church as an agency of oppression. In 
1567, she began that disastrous persecution of the 
Protestant Netherlands, which marks the beginning 
of her long and uniform decline. She had driven out 
the infidel ; she must now cast out the heretic. 

Before eigliteen years had passed, England had 
gained sufficient strength to scatter Spain's "invin- 
cible" Armada^ and her sea prestige was gone fore v^^^ 

^ The Arab invaders of Spain. After eight centuries of warfare, 
the Spaniards succeeded in driving out or converting them. The 
end of this struggle gave the Spanish nionarchs opportunity of 
aiding Columbus. 

-' About 1442, Portugal began to supplant the few Moorish slaves 
she held with Africans from farther down the coast. Tlie Spanish 
followed this example not only at home, but in America where the 
Africans replaced tlie Indian slaves. It is estimated that one and 
one-half million Indians died in the Spanish mines in the first 
fifteen years. Thus by the discovery of two continents, one was 
made to furnish slaves to the other. 

^ Armada is a Spanish word meaning armed force. Hence it was 
applied to the navy sent against England in 1588. It M-as a crusade 



SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 



33 



But for this transition of power, Spain might have 
contested successfully the attempts of England to 
plant colonies in the new world, and the whole trend 
of American history would have been altered. A per- 
petual serfdom in subordinate colonies would have 
rendered impossible the evolution of a higher state 
such as was hoped for in tliis untainted west. In 




■ ENGLISH 
m SPANISH 

ENGLISH (AMERICANS) AND SPANISH IN THE WESTERN WORLD 



iew instances is tlie hand of Providence more mani- 
fest. 

But the laws of the moral world are as immutable 
as those of the natural world. Spain's four hundred 
years of training in cruelty and bigotry was unlikely 

of Roman Catholic Spain against Protestant England. The Armada 
contained at least 180 vessels and almost 30,000 soldiers and sailors. 
A great storm completed the work of the English and not one- 
fourth the Spanish vessels ever returned to Spain. 



34 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

to be oyercome by one lesson. Within twenty years 
after the loss of the Armada, the edict went forth for 
the expulsion of the Moriscos, or converted Moham- 
medans/ from Spain. Industrial suicide was never 
more successfully committed than when these skillful 
artisans and patient laborers were driven over to 
Africa or slaughtered. 

The Spanish state thus committed to the suppres- 
sion of individualism became a vast machine for the 
aggrandizement of the central wealth and power. 
The church had absolute sway over governmental 
policies and cut off those commercial interests so vital 
to the colonies. They in turn were reduced to 
dependencies occupying a certain social relation to the 
king. The distant colonist and the savage alike had 
no claim on the protection nor the mercy of the home 
government. They became parts of the external 
machine. No one born outside the peninsula of 
Spain was entitled to be called a Spaniard or to hold 
office. The commercial wrongs which caused the 
revolution of the English-speaking colonies w^ere suf- 
fered a thousand fold worse by the sluggish Spanish 
colonies.^ 

1 This is one instance in which injustice was followed by im- 
mediate punishment. Spanish industrial decline began almost 
immediately. Commonly a longer time is required to work out 
effects from a cause and the punishment therefore falls upon the 
children. See the last chapter in Fiske's "Discovery of America." 

2 Vessels could sail for Spanish America but from one port in 
Spain and on but two days each year. They were allowed to land 
at only two ports in America. Colonial offices were held by citizens 
of Spain. Of 170 Colonial Viceroys appointed in three centuries, 
only four were born outside Spain; of 160 Captains-General, only 
fourteen were colonists. Unlike the English colonists, the Span- 
iards in America had absolutely no home-rule. See Professor Moses' 
" Establishment of Spanish Rule in America" and Caldecott's 
"English Colonial Empire." 



SPAIN IN THE WESTERN EXPANSION 35 

But retribution is as certain to follow a nation as 
an individual. The decline of Spain had been marked 
by the competing nations. England and France 
assumed possessions in the new world regardless of 
her. Indeed before the year 1700 showed on the dial 
of time the flag of France had replaced that of Spain 
in Hispaniola^ and the English had wrested Jamaica^ 
from the relinquishing grasp of the Spaniard. The 
fittest always survive. Columbus had found a world 
for Spain, but she was not fit to retain it. 

1 The island formerly known to the Spanish by this name 
embraces what is now Hayti and Santo Domingo. Columbus 
planted on it the first colony in the new world (1493). In 1697, 
owing- to Spanish neglect, it was ceded to France. 

2 This is the most important island in the Greater Antilles, east 
of Cuba. The Spaniards settled it in 1509, but lost it in 1655. It 
has since belonged to England. 



CHAPTER III 

ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 

Colonies are naturally of slow growth, especially 
when separated from the parent country by an ocean's 
ex]3anse. One is not surprised to find that fully a 
hundred years elapsed after colonies were perma- 
nently planted in the new world before they had 
expanded sufhciently to cause a struggle for territory 
between the nations they represented. This long 
period afforded the English-speaking colonies an 
opportunity of evolving some uniformity from the 
divergent race elements cast within their borders. 
Not only had Germans, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and 
French found a refuge and home under their liberal 
government, but the Dutch and Swedes occupied land 
within the limits claimed by the English by right of 
discovery. 

The Netherlanders had gained a foothold through 
their instinct for trade. ^ The first Dutch com- 
pany was organized to trade with the new world just 
one hundred years after its discovery. Little was 
effected by this or other organizations until Henrj'- 
Hudson,^ an adventurous Englishman under Dutch 

^ The Spanish, French, and English had divided up the Atlantic 
coast by right of discovery. The Dutch had taken no part in these 
voyages and came only as traders. Their presence was naturally 
felt by the others to be an intrusion. 

^ The adventures of Hudson are almost beyond belief. His fate in 
being turned adrift by a mutinous crew and never being heard 
from again was in accord with his whole life. 

36 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 37 

employ, in search of a passage to India through the 
heart of the continent, anchored in what he called 
the "Great North River of New-Netherland " (later 
named the Hudson), and returned to inflame his 
phlegmatic employers with descriptions of the beauty 
and fertility of the country adjacent to the river. 
This was eleven years before the Mayflower sailed 
and but two years after the founding of Jamestown, 
Virginia. The Englishmen of Virginia did not fail 
to protest against the Dutch taking up residence in 
their charter limits ; ^ nevertheless the Dutch soon 
had settlements extending from Fort Nassau (now 
Gloucester) , New Jersey, some four miles below 
Philadelphia, to Fort Orange (now Albany), New 
York. They also conquered the Swedes along the 
Delaware. 

However aggressive the Netherlanders were in trade 
they were not so in arms. Their southern settlements 
were soon abandoned. Connecticut was formed by 
the English within their territory on the other side. 
When the English were ready to assert their rights 
over all the territory they claimed by discovery, the 
Netherlanders were not prepared to offer any resist- 
ance. In 1663, the vessels of Charles II. appeared 
in the lower bay, and the English landed. Governor 
Peter Stuyvesant^ stumped about on his wooden leg in 

^ Different trading companies obtained from their governments 
charters or rights to the land of America within certain limits. 
The stockholders of these companies lived in England and sent out 
colonies for their respective lands. 

2 Stuy vesant had lost a leg in the service of the Dutch West India 
company. His impotent wrath over the surrender of New York to 
the English is humorously described in Irving's " Knickerbocker's 
History of New York." 



38 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

helpless rage, but the people were willing to trust the 
well-known justice of English rule and would make 
no resistance. The land was at once made into pro- 
prietary governments. New Amsterdam and the Hud- 
son regions were given to the king's brother and 




OLD SWEDISH CHURCH. WILMINGTON, DELAWARK 

named New York in his honor ; the lands to the south 
were named New Jersey in compliment to the birth- 
place of one of the new proprietors.^ Fort Orange 
was renamed Albany ; other Dutch names of places 
were changed and the English obliterated from the 

1 The land lying between the Hudson and the Delaware was 
granted to Lord Berkele}' and Sir George Carteret. The latter had 
been born in the island of Jersey in the English Channel, and had 
also defended that island in the Puritan wars. The name of "New- 
Jersey" was therefore applied to this grant in the new world. 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 39 

map all traces of Dutch possession. Yet Dutch 
families of "Vans" and " Vons " retained a lead in 
early New York society, to be immortalized by Irving 
with the title of " Knickerbockers." ^ 

The great Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had 
desired a share of the western world, but wars and 
other distracting circumstances postponed the attempt 
until 1638, when Peter Minuit,^ under orders from a 
Swedish company, landed his small colony on the 
west side of Delaware Bay, purchased land up the 
Delaware river from the Indians and named the 
territory New Sweden. The Swedes founded Fort 
Christina, New Gottenburg, Printzdorp, Upland, Fin- 
land, and other towns in what is now the state of 
Delaware. Seventeen years later, the Dutch came 
down from New Amsterdam (New York) and con- 
quered the Swedes, only to be absorbed by the English 
a few years afterward. In 1681, Delaware was 
included in the grant to William Penn.^ The Swedes 
enjoyed the toleration of the Quaker government and 
gradually became incorporated in the families of 
Delaware and adjacent states. Peterson (Pietterson), 



^The term "Knickerbocker" arises from the nom de plume or 
name assumed by Irving in writing his "history" of New York, 
It became a part of a shrewd advertising scheme in announcing the 
book, as described in the introduction to most editions. Since that 
time, descendants of the Dutch in New York have been called 
' ' Knickerbockers. ' ' 

2 Gustavus Adolphus had died a few years before this time. 
Minuit served the Dutch before engaging with the Swedes. He 
had about fifty colonists when he entered the Delaware. He was 
governor of New Sweden for three years. 

^ Delaware therefore never was counted as a separate state before 
rJie Revolution, although she had a separate legislature after 1702. 
The colonial governor of Pennsylvania was always the governor of 
Delaware. She was usually styled "The Three Lower Counties. " 



40 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Springer, Paulson, and Hendrickson are examples of 
these family names still to be found in those parts. 

The Germans also found a place in the English pos- 
sessions, but with them the English had no such con- 
test, since they came not to gain empire or trade, but 
to find freedom from w^arring Europe. Any one con- 
versant with the Teutonic love of home and quiet 
must admit that only a powerful reason could have 
driven the people of Germany to exile and the hard- 
ships of a new country. For almost a century Ger- 
many had been the fighting ground of Europe. Then 
the Thirty Years' War,^ with its horde of camp fol- 
lowers living on pillage, in a short time destroyed the 
fruits of years of toil and privation in i3eaceful 
Germany. In some places the population decreased 
sixty per cent, and wealth and property still more. 
The gruesome story of the continued wars is told by 
the ruins of castles and towers which to-day charm 
travelers from the rocky heights bordering the beloved 
Rhine. 

Boat after boat filled w^ith tearful emigrants, car- 
rying wdiatever could be saved from their ruined 
homes, floated dow^n the rapid current of the Ehine to 
Rotterdam, there to embark for some portion of the 
western world. The society of the savage was to be 
preferred to the cruelty of civilization. If vessels 
wei-e wanting at Rotterdam, the emigrants crossed to 
hospitable England, where their destitute condition 
won the sympathy of all hearts. In IGDO, thirteen 

^ A religious-political war, waged for the most part in Germany, 
and involving all the nations of central Europe, was terminated by 
the peace of Westphalia in 1G48. Austria and Spain were pitted 
against France, Sweden and Denmark. 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 41 

thousand men, women, and children from the Rhine 
region were given shelter in tents erected in the 
suburbs of London, until they could be passed on to 
America. Thousands of pounds were subscribed for 
their relief. 

These people would be attracted by a government 
promising religious liberty and consequent freedom 
from the religious wars which had driven them from 
home. T]iey were Lutherans or members of the scores 
of sects akin to Lutheranism, but all had the zeal 
for propagandism burned out by persecution. They 
wanted simply to be let alone. Such a desire was in 
fine accord with the high ideal of William Penn. 
The inner light by which tlie Friend is guided takes 
the place of a guardianshijD of conscience at the hands 
of the state. Therefore Penn turned eagerly toward 
these Germans in his search for colonists to people 
the vast expanse of his grant of land extending five 
degrees west from the Delaware river. He made 
three visits to Germany. Pamphlets flowed from the 
printing presses^ in High German, Low German, 
French and English to describe the natural advan- 
tages of Pennsylvania. At Frankfort and Crefeld, 
German companies were organized and all hopes cen- 
tered in the new " Province of Quackerthal." ^ 

So vast became the tide of emigration that it was 
currently believed that the Quakers used some kind 



^Sachse's " The Fatherland " describes thirty-four of these pam- 
phlets still in existence. The one shown in the cut is in the Con- 
gressional Library at Washington. 

2 The Germans changed the spelling of Quaker into Quacker. as 
shown in Quackerthal, that is, Quaker Valley. The Dutch spelled 
it Quaaker. 



42 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



of philtre or powder to charm the people and gain 
recruits for Pennsylvania. Both the States-General 
and England found it necessary to take steps to check 
the tide ; the one lest her country be depopulated and 



E E N 

^- BRIEF 

Van ecu zcker H e e r. 

WILLIAM PENN, 

Eygenaar en Gouverneur van ^ 

PENSYLVANI A; 

Bcncffens zvn 

ANTWOORD 

daar op. 
Vyt het Engelfch I'ertaald. 



c 




t t'AmfterdaiTi , by dc Wed van Steven SwaRT, 
I bczyde dc Ucurs, i6 8». 



^ 






DUTCH PAMPHLET OF WILLIAM PKXN' 

the other lest she have a German colony in the midst 
of her American possessions.^ A writer in the 

1 England required all alien colonists to register as they entered 
the American ports. Rupp has collected these lists for Philadelphia 
in his "Ten Thousand Names," etc. Franklin's writings give a 
panoramic view of these Germans. Their descendants are now 
commonly called "Pennsylvania Dutch." 



i 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 43 

Columbian Magazine, January, 1789, gives an interest- 
ing view of the Pennsylvania Germans. 

Those first coming migrated from the Palatinate, from Alsace, 
Swabia, Saxony, and Switzerland; but every j)rincipality is now 
represented in the state. They brought with them only a few 
pieces of gold or silver coin, a chest filled with clothes, a Bible, and 
a praj'er or an hymn book. Many bound themselves or their chil- 
dren for four to seven years to pay their passage. They are chiefly 
farmers; also weavers, taylors, tanners, shoemakers, comb-makers, 
smiths of all kinds, butchers, bakers, paper-makers, watch-makers, 
and sugar bakers. In settling, they always provide large and suit- 
able accommodations for their horses and cattle, before they lay out 
much money in building a house for themselves. They prefer 
meadow land, and clear their fields by removing the trees instead 
of girdling them. This causes a saving in broken plows over the 
usual custom. They also practice economy in using stoves instead 
of fireplaces, in keeping their houses warm in order to save food, 
and in feeding their horses so well that a German horse was known 
in every part of the state. Their fences are high and sufiicient to 
protect the crops. The usual diet of the English residents before 
their coming had been beets and turnips; the Germans added 
sallads, onions and cabbage, the last of which they make into ''sour 
crout.'' They bring these vegetables into Philadelphia in large and 
strong wagons, covered with linen cloth, and drawn by four or five 
large horses of a peculiar breed. It is no uncommon thing to meet 
in one day from fifty to one hundred of these wagons on the Lan- 
caster and Reading roads. 

The Germans live frugally, eat sparingly of animal food and 
rarely use distilled spirits. Their furniture is plain and useful. 
They cover themselves in winter with light feather beds instead of 
blankets ; in this contrivance there is both convenience and econ- 
omy, for the beds are warmer than blankets, and they are made by 
themselves. The farmers are very much influenced in planting and 
pruning trees, also in sowing and reaping, by the age and appear- 
ances of the moon. 

Francis Daniel Pastorius,^ a German Quaker, from 
Westphalia, planted his Scripture-governed commu- 

^ See Whittier's "Pennsylvania Pilgrim," where the simple lives 
of Francis and Anna Pastorius are described. 



44 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

nity of thirteen families at German-town north of 
Philadelpliia (now a part of the city). Penn was 
present and partook of the dinner eaten after the 
"raising" of the first two-story house. Soon the 
German Language was heard in all the region lying 
west, northwest, and north of Philadelphia, and the 
foundations were laid for the predominance in Penn- 
sylvania and in national history of such names as 
Rittenhouse, Shoemaker, Muhlenburg, Zollicoffer, 
Siegel, and Pennypacker. The region to the south 
and southwest of Philadelphia was settled by the 
English Quakers. In 176G, Franklin estimated that 
there were about one hundred and thirty-six thousand 
whites in Pennsylvania, of whom one-third were 
Quakers (English) and one-third Germans. In some 
years as many as twelve thousand Germans arrived 
on the Pennsylvania^ Patience^ Two Brothers, Phwni.r, or 
other vessels sailing between Rotterdam and Phila- 
delphia. 

But the German immigration was not confined to 
Pennsylvania, although largest there. About 1710, 
three thousand Palatines Mvere located on the banks 
of the Hudson river where now is the city of New- 
burg — possibly named from the house of Newburg. 
They were to act as a barrier or protection against 
the French, who were drawing too near English ter- 
ritory along the easy route of Lake Champlain. Inci- 
dentally these Germans were employed in making 
turpentine and tar from the sap of pine trees. They 
suffered great hardships. Four liundred and seventy 

1 Coming from the Upper and Lower Palatinate, states of 
Germany. 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 45 

had died on the voyage. Their importation proved 
unprofitable to the government. Eventually their 
children were indentured or "bound out," the boys 
until they were seventeen and the girls until fifteen. 
Other and smaller groups of these people found homes 
in the uplands of Virginia under Governor Spotswood ; 
at New Berne, North Carolina ; and at different places 
through the seaboard colonies. Three hundred of them 
journeyed even to the Mississippi, settling a few miles 
above New Orleans. 

The French in the English colonies owed their 
migration to religious persecution as did the Ger- 
mans. The attempt of Roman Catholic France 
to put down the Huguenots caused early beginnings 
of colonization to be made in a part of Florida claimed 
by France and in French Acadia (Nova Scotia). But 
the former was broken up by the Spaniards, and the 
latter superseded by the Jesuits. Many Huguenots 
had fled from French provinces to tolerant Holland. 
These Walloons and Waldenses, as they were called, 
fraternized with the Netherlanders and accompanied 
them on the migration to America. About New York 
and the states immediately west one now finds 
descendants of the families of Depuis (Depew and 
Dupee), Vincent, Richards, Turner, Camp, Clement, 
Perrine, Canon, Dubois (Boise, Boyce, Boice) , Vaux, 
Hasbrocq (Hasbrook), Provost, and De Peyster. 

When Rochelle, the stronghold of the French 
Protestants, was broken up, its people came over the 
ocean and founded New Rochelle near New York. 
Many French refugees found a home in Boston. 
From them came Peter Faneuil, who built for the 



46 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

city the market house celebrated as the "cradle of 
liberty," from the many meetings held tliere during 
the rising of the Revolution. Paul Revere, the Revo- 
lutionary express rider, was also descended from the 
Huguenots. John Jay, the first chief justice of the 
United States, was the grandson of a French emigrant. 

The Scotch and Scotch-Irish^ were scattered 
throughout the colonies, but predominated in parts of 
New Hampshire and in southwestern Pennsylvania. 
From the latter region, they migrated dc^n the Shen- 
andoah and adjoining valleys into western Virginia 
and the Carolinas. The internal troubles of Virginia 
which terminated in the separation of West Virginia 
in 1863 were born of race differences. The signers of 
the Mecklenburg "declaration" were mostly Scotch.^ 

It is a difficult task to plot the Welsh on the map in 
America, as it is the Scotch and Irish. Many spoke 
English and others rapidly adopted that tongue and 
all were soon assimilated with the masses. A descend- 
ant of the Welsh claims that seventeen of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence were of 
Welsh extraction, one of them. Button Gwinnett, 
having been born in Wales. He claims seven presi- 
dents of the United States before Lincoln ; also both 

^ About 1610, after repeated rebellions on the part of the Irish 
Roman Catholics, King James I. of England gave about one-half 
million acres of land in northern Ireland to Scotch Presbyterians if 
they would remove there. These Scotch migrating to Ireland gave 
origin to the " Scotch-Irish." Soon after 1700 they complained of 
unjust treatment by Anne and numbers of them came to America. 
They w^ere generally Presb3^terians, as were the other Scotch who 
came to America for the sake of religious freedom. 

- Over a year before the passing of the motion for Independence 
by the Continental Congress, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, 
North Carolina, reasoned that the king and parliament by their 
own actions had freed the colonists from all allegiance. 



ALIEN PEOPLES IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES 47 

the Adamses, Jefferson, the Lees, Robert Morris, 
Harrison, and Hopkinson.^ 

This process of assimilating different nationalities 
continues in the United States to this day, although 
the foreign nations contributing have changed from 
time to time. A new country possesses powerful 
absorbing qualities. A new type has been created 
— the energetic, courageous "American" — who 
exhibits some traits of each of the parent peoples and 
all the traits of no one of them. A much more local 
spirit characterized the people in colonial days, as 
we shall now see in examining their conditions and 
surroundings. 

^ The Rev. Dr. West in a pamphlet containing an address at the 
laying of the corner stone of a church in Philadelphia, 1857. 




NKW AMSTERDAM ( NKW \ OKK ) IN 1673 



CHAPTER IV 

LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

The population of the American colonies under 
English control was estimated in 1750 at but little 
over a million, not nearly so many people as are now 
found in one of our great cities.^ They were scattered 
in isolated communities about some bay or inlet or on 
some navigable water. They had little in common 
and but slight means of communication. In many 
instances the race differences noted in the preceding 
chapter acted as a decentralizing factor. Father 

^ Proportionate representation was unknown to the colonists and 
no occasion for taking a census arose. In some places there was a 
strong antipathy to any numbering of the people, because it was 
supposed to cause illness. Estimates or guesses at the population 
of the colonies were reported at different times by the royal gover- 
nors. The first two columns of the following table are taken from 
these reports. The third is an estimate made by the delegates in 
the Continental Congress for the just distribution of the financial 
burdens. The last column is the first census of the United States : 



New Hampshire, 

Massachusetts, 

Connecticut, 

Ehode Island, 

New York, 

New Jersey, 

Pennsylvania and Delaware, 20,000 

Delaware, 

Maryland, 

Virginia, 

North Carolina, 

South Carolina, 

Georgia, 

Pennsylvania and Delaware were counted together until the 
Revolution. Georgia was not founded until 1733. 

48 



1701. 


1750. 


1783. 


1790. 


10,000 


30,000 


52,708 


141,885 


70,000 


220,000 


224,427 


378,787 


30,000 


100,000 


132,091 


237,946 


10,000 


35,000 


32,318 


68,825 


30,000 


100,000 


128,243 


340,120 


15,000 


60,000 


83,358 


184,139 


20,000 


250,000 ( 


Penn) 205,189 


434,373 






22,443 


59,096 


25^000 


sim 


141.517 


319,728 


40,000 


85,000 


256,487 


747,610 


5,000 


45,000 


109,006 


393,751 


7.000 


30,000 


96,183 


249,073 




6,000 


18,030 


82,548 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 49 

Jogiies^ in 1643 had counted eighteen different dia- 
lects spoken in what is now the city of New York. 
Burnaby^ wrote down the opinion that "fire and 
water are not more heterogeneous than the different 
colonies. . . . Were they left to themselves there 
would soon be a civil war from one end of the con- 
tinent to the other." James Otis, of Eevolutionary 
fame, said, " America would be a mere shambles of 
blood and confusion before little petty states could be 
settled " if she should become independent. 

Thus surrounded by the wilderness and cut up into 
little groups, the colonists were keenly susceptible 
to religious feeling. Man's helplessness brought a 
dependence on Omnipotence. Phenomena of nature 
which we now ascribe to natural laws were attributed 
by the colonist to a personal God. When a gallery in 
Jonathan Edwards's^ church fell, Edwards said that 
God so arranged the place where every stick and 
beam should fall that no one in the house was 
injured. When the great revival of 1736 brought 
on the convulsions commonly called *' the jerks," 
Edwards refused to believe they were caused by 



^ A French Jesuit, who went as a missionary among the Huron 
Indians in 1636. Being captured by the Mohawks, he escaped to 
New Amsterdam, where he wrote his description of the New Nether- 
lands. Later he voluntarily returned to the Mohawks and was killed 
as a worker of bad magic. His writings may be found in the publi- 
cations of the New York Historical Society. 

2 An English traveler who left his comments in ' ' Travels through 
the Middle Settlements in North America, in the Years 1759 and 
1760." It was first published in London in 1775. 

3 There is a life of Jonathan Edwards in the American Religious 
Leaders series. A larger book is "D wight's Life of President 
Edwards. ' ' He was for almost twenty-five years pastor at North- 
ampton, Massachusetts. Soon after accepting the presidency of 
Princeton college, he died of inoculation for the smallpox. 



50 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

mental excitement, but ascribed them to a personal 
devil agonizing the body in leaving it. Books were 
few, religious papers almost unknown, and the congre- 
gation depended on its x)i*eacher for aid and instruc- 
tion. It was the day of powerful preaching. When 
Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon at Enfield, 
Connecticut, on " Sinners in the hands of an angry 
God," an eye-witness said that sinners actually clung 
to the pillars supporting the gallery to keep themselves 




■ ........ 

Ir POEM, 

f On the DEATH of that celcbr.ucJ Divine, a-sd cumcnt Servant of JEbUS CHWST, \hc lite R;. c.-c:^ ', 

^ GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 

HKADING ON FUXERAL STANZAS 



from falling into the pit so vividly described by the 
preacher. So great became the lamentations of the 
convicted ones, that the speaker was obliged to re- 
quest them to make less noise that he miglit be heard. 
Whitefield, of whom David Garrick, the play actor, 
said that lie could pronounce "Mesopotamia" in a 
way to bring tears to Garrick' s eyes, found a ready 
hearing for his remarkable preaching when he made 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 51 

his several missionary visits to America. Franklin 
found it impossible to resist his collection plate/ A 
place of preaching was built for him in Philadelphia, 
and when he died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, an 
unusual number of the customary funeral stanzas was 
printed and sold. 

The church was the common meeting place. 
Whether in the solemn New England church or in 
the less reserved "established church " of the south, 
the religious gatherings gave almost the only oppor- 
tunity in those lonely days of exchanging a bit of 
conversation. The church and state were united in all 
save Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. The first rep- 
resentative body in America met in the church at 
Jamestown, Virginia. In New England it was not 
uncommon to hold the town meeting in the church. 
Since the church and state were united, the state used 
the church to prepare men for the next world. Thus 
the right to cast out heretics was assumed and so 
arose the religious persecution all too common in 
colonial days. 

The horizon of life was purely local. Funerals 
furnished a kind of melancholy entertainment. 
Unusual interest was attached to executions and the 



^In his different "Journals" Wliitefield has described the inci- 
dents connected with his journeys as missionary preacher through 
the colonies and his efforts to maintain an orphan house in Georgia. 
His connection with tlie " Wesley movement "' caused many of the 
churches of the middle colonies to be closed against him. Franklin, 
who did not attend the regular churches, went to hear Wliitefield, 
id in his Autobiography tells how the persuasive power of the 
reat preacher caused him to exchange the small coin lie intended 
» give for a larger one, until when the plate was passed at the 
ose he could not help emptying the contents of his pocket into it. 
'^hittier's "The Preacher" contrasts Edwards with Wliitefield. 



52 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

death penalty was prescribed for many offenses now 
lightly punished. If colonial laws were in force at the 
present time probably about one-half the convicted 
criminals would be executed. Therefore executions 
were as common then as now, although the popula- 
tion has increased seventy-fold. The ceremony was 

intended as 
a warning 
a n d w a s 
public. 
Handbills 
were struck 
by the print- 
er and sold 
through the 
crowd, de- 
jDicting the 
crime or the 
fate of the 
criminal and 




Solemn Farewell to 
LEFI AMES, 

Being a POEM written a few Days before his 
E X E C U T I O N. for Burglary, OB. 21, 177^ 
AX KXKcrnox haxdiui.l 



warning 
others. Sometimes the accompanying verses were 
supposed to be written by the criminal and taught a 
moral lesson.^ 



^ Two stanzas in one of these handbills on the execution of Levi 
Ames read: 

See! round the Prison how the Throns 

From every Quartet pour; 
Some mourn with sympathising Tongue! 

The ruder Rabble roar. 

Slow rolls the Cart with solemn Pace, 

The Ladder shows on higli; 
See the poor pinion'd Prisoner pass 

On to Eternity. 



1.IFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 53 

Occasionally another kind of amusement appeared 
in a band of concert singers ^ or strolling actors who 
came from England to appear in the theaters of the 
south and in New York. They were frowned upon 
in Puritan New England and Quaker Philadelphia. ^ 
"Othello," ^'Richard III.," and other Shakespearean 




-^ 






MUSEUM & WAX-WORK , 

At the EXCHANGE, NEW-YORK, i 

HKAT) (iK A MI'SEUM ANNOUNCEMENT 

plays were produced. Exhibition was also made of 
collections of seaweed and shells from the Orient; or 
a ''Great Sarpeant;" and "a Creature called a 
JAPANESE (possibly a chimpanzee) of about 2 feet 
high, his body resembling a human Bo dy in all Parts 

lA handbill preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society 
rooms announces a series of concerts by "a foreign musician m a 
private house. Chairs will be placed for the ladies and benches f or 
the gentlemen. "Decency, good Manners and silence shall at all 
timel be regarded " Nine performances were to be given foi a 
guinea. The performer solicits the loan of new imisic. 

2There was no theater built in Boston until 1-93 Pla5S^^ele 
given under the name of " Moral lectures,' and the playhouse was 
called a New Exhibition Eoom. Even then it came near being 
pulled down by a mob. Barnard's "Travels m America gives an 
interesting program of "Othello" presented as a "moral lectuie. 



54 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

except Feet and Tail." He is promised to perform 
"various Actions to Admiration,, such as walking 
upon a Line, hanging and swinging under it, exercis- 
ing the Fire lock, dances to any Tune, and sundry 
other Things too tedious to mention." Museums 
were a legitimate form of amusement and were well 
patronized. 

A distinct difference was recognized in the southern 
colonies between the rich planters and the poor class 
of small landholders. In Pennsylvania the Quakers 
made up a flourishing commercial community entirely 
distinct from the Germans and Scotch-Irish. New 
York aristocracy was composed of the old Dutch 
families and of English traders, many of whom had 
come out with the expectation of returning to Eng- 
land after a fortune had been acquired. They had to 
compete in business with the shrewd Dutch mer- 
chants, but enjoyed such advantages that they gave a 
distinctly Tory cast to the city of New York in early 
Revolutionary times. Social classes were less known 
in "levelling" New England, but one need only 
note the fine colonial houses to feel that all could not 
afford to have them and that there must have been 
distinctions. Social classes have decreased rather 
than increased since colonial days.^ 

Fortunes were small. John Adams ^ thought Charles 

^ Historical verification of this statement is not wanting. In 
many of the early churches seats were assigned according to rank. 
The early catalogues of Harvard college show the students' names 
not in the alphabetical order as is now the custom, but according to 
the rank of the parents. Washington had liis coat of arms on his 
coach and on the harness of his horses as did all the gentlemen of 
Virginia. 

^See John Adams's Works, vol. II., p. 380. 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 55 

Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, a man of the first 
fortune in America, with an income of £14,000 and 
the expectations from his father's vast estate. George 
Washington, with almost seventy-five thousand acres 
of land which he had inherited and had gained 
by his marriage,^ was perhaps the next richest 
man. 

Strict attention to dress was paid among the 
wealthier class, especially in the south. Clothing 
was ordered from England, and the colonists some- 
times complained that the English merchants kept 
their most fashionable goods for the home market and 
sent over to the colonies "fashions suited to our 
grand parents." Books were not kept in stock but, 
upon the arrival of a ship, merchants announced in 
the newspapers the titles of such books as she had 
brought over. Only a wealthy gentleman like Lewis 
Morris, of Morrisania, near New York, sometime 
governor of New Jersey, could afford to send to his 
London bookseller for long lists of books, "lettered 
and guilt as usual." 

Benjamin Franklin could not be considered among 
the wealthy citizens of Philadelphia, but the follow- 
ing advertisement which appeared in his paper in 



1 Washington had inherited from his half-brother, Lawrence 
twenty-five hundred acres on the Potomac, inchuhng the seat ot 
Mount Vernon. From the bounty lands for services m the Indian 
wars, he had earned and bought up some fifty thousand more. Mrs^ 
Custis brought to him under the colonial laws fifteen thousand 
acres, between two and three hundred negroes, and eight to ten 
thousand pounds in bond. The death of Martha Custis the daughter 
of Mrs Washington, added ten thousand pounds to Washington s 
fortune. It had reverted to Mrs. Washington and by Virginia law 
to the husband. 



56 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

1750 indicates that his wife, Deborah, was not meanly 
gowned : 

Whereas on Saturday night last, the house of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, of this city, printer, was broken open, and the following things 
feloniously taken away, viz., a double neck-lace of gold beads, a 
woman's long scarlet cloak, almost new, with a double cape, a 
woman's gown, of printed cotton, of the sort called brocade print, 
very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other 
large red and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, and 
smaller blue and white flowers, with many green leaves ; a pair of 
woman's stays, covered with white tabby before, and dove-colour 'd 
tabby behind, with two large steel hooks, and sundry other goods. 

Travel by land or water was a hardship. When 
Benjamin Franklin ran away from his brother's 
printing office in 1723, he was three days sailing in 
the sloop from Boston to New York. Between New 
York and Philadelphia the small boat in which he 
had taken passage to Amboy w^as caught in a squall 
and he was thirty hours without food and water. He 
next walked fifty miles to Burlington, and afterwards 
spent a night on the Delaware when rowing down to 
Philadelphia. Travelers with plenty of money fared 
but little better. Packets sailed only at intervals 
between Boston and New York, New York and Phila- 
delphia, and between Philadelphia and Charleston. 
On some of the rivers, sailing vessels passed but 
twice per w^eek. It required usually about six days 
to go from New York to Albany. 

Land travel was developed slowly since roads had 
to be made and ferries or fords provided. It was 133 
years after tlie landing on Plymouth Rock before a 
stage ran regularly between New York and Phila- 
delphia. Prince's Vade Mecum in 1730 describes 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 57 

eight roads by which one might reach different parts 
of New England as far north as Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, and west to New York— 390 miles. 
Directions were also given for a route from New York 
to Philadelphia, ninety-seven miles, and thence to the 
James River, in Virginia — 343 miles. The author 
pathetically adds : " If any gentlemen in the Southern 




>' .- S-1 r. .^-iW be perfcrm- 
to Pfiilau<*l- 

plua, m iae f. eieau'a v.2^- 

^'on i'titij . . -"^ Saturday 

m<..r., ' ' ^^ f>'cK»ck oa 

^i,g , v,'ig^:->n, which pro- 

f-^rr from B{upfwi"k Mr, 

rjjp, '1^ on evfry Moa^ »y 

aad. Xiiur : i s. r%- ^ , ■". ' ^i in ^ i<::'i'">n Mr, fah'ji B\rii--i 

ADVERTISEMENT OF STAGE (FROM A PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPER) 

Provinces will Please to send to the Publishers an 
exact Account of the several Counties, Towns, Courts, 
Fairs, Eoads, &c., in their several Governments; 
they shall be very gratefully received and added to 
this Composure." 

The inns along the roads were few and entirely 
inadequate when several travelers chanced to meet. 



58 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Visitors from Europe pronounced them "wretched 
beyond description." When Silas Deane^ and his 
fellow delegates went down to the Continental Con- 
gress in 1774, they found "no fruit, bad rum, and 
nothing of the meat kind but salt pork. " At another 
tavern, they had to go out and " knock over" three or 
four chickens to be roasted for their dinner. No 
porter was to be had at another inn and the only 
palatable drink was some "bottle-cyder." Some- 
times dangerous fords had to be crossed in journeys. 
Ferries were established by private enterprise over 
the larger streams, but travelers were frequently 
delayed by high winds which made crossing impos- 
sible. ,-— 
Travelers were rare, yet they afforded the only 
means of securing the news. This desire for the 
latest information was sometimes attributed to idle 
curiosity. Burnaby tells a story he heard about 
Franklin : 

I was told of a gentleman of Philadelphia, who, in traveling 
through the provinces of New England, having met with many im- 
pertinences, from this extraordinary turn of character, at length 
fell upon an expedient almost as extraordinary, to get rid of them. 
He had observed, when he w^ent into an ordinary, that every indi- 
vidual of the family had a question or two to propose to him, rela- 
tive to his history ; and that, till each was satisfied, and they had 
conferred and compared together their information, there was no 
possibility of procuring any refreshment. He, therefore, the 
moment he went into any of these places, inquired for the master, 
the mistress, the sons, the daughters, the men-servants, and the 
maid-servants ; and having assembled them all together, he began 
in this manner: "Worthy people, I am B. F. of Philadelphia, by 
trade a , and a bachelor; I have some relations at Boston, to 

^ The Deane Papers are published by the New York Historical 
Society. 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 59 

whom I am going to make a visit ; my stay will be short, and I shall 
then return and follow my business, as a prudent man ought to do. 
This is all I know of myself, and all I can possibly inform you of ; I 
beg therefore that you will have pity upon me and my horse, and 
give us both some refreshment." 

John Adams ^ in liis diary gives one experience : 

12. Thursday afternoon, 3 o'clock. Got into my desobligeant, 
to go home. Two or three miles out of town I overtook two men 
on horseback; they rode sometimes before me, then would fall 
behind, and seemed a little unsteady ; at last one of them came up. 
"What is your name'?"' "Why ; of what consequence is it what my 
name is?" "Why," says he, "only as we are traveling the road 
together, I wanted to know where you came from, and what your 
name was." I told him my name. "Where did you come from?" 
"Boston." "Where have you been ?" "To Falmouth." " Upon a 
frolic, I suppose?" " No, upon business." " What business, pray? " 
"Business at court." 

Thus far I humored his impertinence. "Well, now," says he, 
" do you want to know my name?" "Yes." " My name is Robert 
Jordan; I belong to Cape Elizabeth, and am now going round there. 
My forefathers came over here and settled a great many years ago." 
After a good deal more of this harmless impertinence, he turned off 
and left me. 

^From John Adams's Works, vol. II., p. 246. 



CHAPTER V 

LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA— (CON- 
TINUED) 

Newspapers had not yet assumed importance as 
disseminators of news. When the Revolution broke 
out there were only thirty-seven newspapers in the 
American colonies, and no dailies. Massachusetts 
had seven, New York three, and Pennsylvania eight. 
They were not much larger than a large pamphlet 
page of the present day, and of four pages only. The 
editor wrote the advertisements and made a tour of 
the docks and coffee houses to get such newspapers as 
might be brought in. From these he made up his 
paper, printing the news from each place under the 
date when the paper from which the clipping was 
taken had been issued. 

* ' Broadsides ' ' or extra sheets were frequently 
printed and distributed as extras or sold on the 
streets. For instance, when a procession in Phila- 
delphia carted an image of the two-faced Benedict 
Arnold through the streets, accompanied by the 
devil, and cast the whole into a bon-fire, a *' broad- 
side" was issued, giving a rude reiDresentation of the 
scene. 

The latest news from Europe which the New York 
Weekly Post Boy, of February 25, 1750, could find 
was just four months old ; that from Charlestown one 
month ; Philadelphia one week, and from Boston 

60 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA «1 

three weeks old. The class of news illustrates the 
simple life of the people. From Charlestown came, 
nine lines on a "violent storm of wind." Boston 
contributed sixteen lines on a ''most violent Storm. 
The Rain descended and the Floods came in a most 
shocking Manner. " From the same place appeared a 
story in four lines of a child falling into a cellar, 
four lines on a Captain Benjamin Blany thrown from 
his horse, and eight lines on the drowning of two 
sailors. 



Fa representation of the FIGURES exhibited and paraded tl.n.ugh the Streets of Vi 
' the 30/,^ of Septemier --"- 




FROM A "BROADSIDE 



Philadelphia contributed three lines on the execu- 
tion of three men for housebreaking and the reprieve 
of a fourth ; four lines on a man and his wife arrested 
in Chester for robbery; four lines on a "violent 
N.E. storm." New York itself offered twenty-eight 
lines on the capture of a woman thief who had been 
arrested a few weeks before "and would have been 
burnt in the Hand but was begg'd off." Two small 
notes of a man struck by lightning and a sloop 
wrecked, together with the entries at the New York 
and the Philadelphia custom houses complete the 



62 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

domestic news. It makes a total of one and one half 
columns. The foreign news of the same issue occu- 
pies just twice as much space. 

Houses and lands for sale or rent furnish the bulk 
of the three and one-half columns of advertisements 
in this issue. Four merchants announce the arrival 
of cargoes of merchandise of various kinds from the 
old world or the Indies. A curious advertisement 
reads : 

The publick WHIPPER of the City of NEW YORK 
being lately dead ; if any Person inclines to accept that 
office with TWENTY POUNDS a Year, he may apply to the 
Mayor, and be entered. 

As a religious duty, Massachusetts and Connecticut 
had early 



{^"Jeremiah Mori arty, now 
teaching "-^ dance in Mr. (^icfhay's- 
hr)iilo on SS',>cka--Hill, will nilo fc;:< h 
tiiruC" (.fihe CU.OBKS. 

/ .) /.. v n r n 

tkacher's advertisement 



formed an in- 
cipient public 
school system 
for the educa- 
tion of poor 
children. But 
in no other col- 
ony was there 

such a general attempt before the Revolution. There 
were many schools but they were privately supported 
and were organized wherever a sufficient number of 
scholars could be obtained. Early newspapers contain 
advertisements of teachers. In 1750 in New York 
there was "Thomas Jolmson living opposite the watch- 
house, who teaches Reading, Writing, and Aritli- 
metick, &c." Also "there is a Person at Mr. James 
Mills's . . . who teaches the new Italian Method 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 



63 



of Bookkeeping and a new invented Short Hand." 
One could study Latin of "a man lately come to town 
who keeps at Scotch Jonny's, upon the Dock." 

The announcement of Anne Stockton shows the 
straits to which a teacher was put in early times to 
gain a livelihood : 

ANNE STOCKTON, who lately advertised to keep an Ordi- 
nar3% has declined, and is advised to teach young Ladies 
to sew and embroider, and Millenary. Any Gentlemen or 
Ladies that have any Misses to send her, may depend that 
due Care will be taken in teaching them: She likewise 
takes in plain Work, and dresses Head Clothes after the 
newest Fashion ; and young Ladies boarded, by 

ANNE STOCKTON. 

Paper was scarce and the printer was often puzzled 
to get his matter into condensed space. To this 
scarcity of paper is due the variety of sizes and tints 
shown in a file of colonial papers. The margin was 

often used 

for adver-r 

tisements, t 

generally of 

slaves to be 

sold. Adver- I 

tisements \ 

were some- I 

times al- 
lowed to accumulate and issued as a supplement. 
Cuts were confined to little square representations 
of runaway servants and slaves who sometimes 
carried off the master's horse, thereby deserving the 
gallows. 

The printer's office was a kind of colonial clearing- 





64 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

house. Many of the advertisements closed with — 
"Inquire of the printer." He had to circulate his 
papers and therefore was early identified with the 
carrying of mail and with the post-ofHce. A printer 
of Boston was also postmaster as early as 1654, but 
the old ]3ractice of using travelers as postboys for 
short distances and taverns as post-offices continued 
a century after. In rural Virginia, where there were 
no printers, a mail bag was sent from plantation to 
plantation, each planter taking out his mail and being 
required by law to pass the bag to the next. It was 
quite common for a postmaster-editor to refuse to cir- 
culate the rival papers of his city, but Benjamin 
Franklin, who, as editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette, 
was made postmaster of IMiiladelphia in 1737, de- 
clared it a mean practice and one Avhich he would not 
follow. Franklin showed such organizing ability as 
postmaster that in 1753 he was made one of two joint 
deputy postmasters-general for America, with a joint 
salary of six hundred pounds, if so much could be 
cleared above expenses. 

The post-office soon became a paying institution, 
notwithstanding the additional expense of the reforms 
which Franklin instituted. It had been a common 
practice to send forward a mail only when sufficient 
matter had accumulated to make the journey profit- 
able to the carriers, who rode on horseback. Frank- 
lin formed a regular system of officers and carriers, 
with a schedule of postage averaging a penny for 
about thirty miles. He required subscribers to pay 
for having newspapers carried, originated the adver- 
tising of uncalled-for letters, straightened post roads 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 65 



md increased the Philadelphia-New York mail to three 
imes per week in summer and once per week in 
vinter. In 1755 the British government assumed a 
monopoly on the carrying of letters from England to 
the West Indian and the American colonies. Such 
letters must be prepaid at the rate of one shilling for 
each quarter of an ounce. They were despatched by 
fast packets which sailed once a month from Fal- 
mouth to New York. 

Franklin continued to hold his office until the Revo- 
lution broke 

L O N D 
The 



out 




;/9' to Joa; 



Ship 
Prince WILLUM, , 

JcJm Mi f civil, UAlcx^\ 

Oee Half of her Lcadi.i; is a/- \ 
ready en gaged, and ft: i<.id 
fail -n:rlh all corfvcnie^t Spctd. 

For F.- fight or Pajfagtt ^'f 
I PL J A M K ; , or [aid hiafir. 



but 
even then 
the line of 
posts ex- 
tended only 
from New 
H a m p shire 
to Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, and in no place penetrated the 
interior of the continent one hundred miles. That 
vast region was as yet a sealed book. 

Throughout the colonies generally the ruling class 
was made up of Englishmen, since they were under the 
control of England. Hence the forms of self-govern- 
ment which they set up were largely local adaptations 
of forms existing in the mother country. Much of 
the local government was in crude hands and it was 
not always well administered. Time was lacking in 
which to train statesmen. 

Thomas Jefferson, a most careful although youth- 
ful observer, sent to John Page in 1766 the following 



6Q THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

description ^ of a colonial legislature sitting at An- 
napolis : 

But I will now give you some account of what I have seen in 
this metropolis, the assembly happens to be sitting at this time, 
their upper and lower house, as they call them, sit in different 
houses. I went into the lower, sitting in an old courthouse, which, 
judging from its form and appearance, was built in the year one. 
I was surprised on approaching to hear as great a noise and hubbub 
as you will usually observe at a publick meeting of the planters in 
Virginia, the first object which struck me after my entrance was 
the figure of a little old man dressed but indifferently, with a yel- 
low queue wig on, and mounted in the judge's chair, this the 
gentleman who walked with me informed me was the speaker, a 
man of very fair character, but who by the eye, has very little the 
air of a speaker, at one end of the justice's bench stood a man whom 
in another place I should from his dress and phis have taken for 
Goodall the lawyer in Williamsburg, reading a bill then before the 
house with a school boy tone and an abrupt pause at every half 
dozen words, this I found to be the clerk of the assembly, the 
mob (for such was their appearance) sat covered on the justices' 
and lawyers' benches, and were divided into little clubs amusing 
themselves in the common chit chat way. I was surprised to see 
them address the speaker without rising from their seats, and three, 
four and five at a time without being checked, when a motion 
was made, the speaker instead of putting the question in the usual 
form, only asked the gentlemen whether they chose that such or 
such a thing should be done, and was answered by a yes sir, or 
no sir; and tho' the voices appeared to be divided they never would 
go to the trouble of dividing the house, but the clerk entered the 
resolutions, I supposed, as he thought proper, in short every thing 
seems to be carried without the house in general's knowing what 
was proposed. I shall proceed tomorrow to Philadelphia where I 
shall make the stay necessary for inoculation. . . .- 

^ In a letter owned by the Lenox Library, New York City. 

2 Al)out the time that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced 
inoculation for smallpox into England, 1721, the Rev. Cotton Mather 
described the process used in the east to Dr. Zabdiel Boylston 
of Boston. Much to the liorror of the Boston people, the doctor 
inoculated his own child of six years, and two servants. Tlie suc- 
cess of the experiment caused the practice to grow rapidly until 
"classes" were formed in many places for the necessary isolatioiL 



LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 67 

Cities were small. Probably not more than one- 
twentieth of the people lived in cities of eight thou- 
sand or over. Now such cities embrace one-third the 
total population. New York was in 1760 only about a 
mile long and a half-mile wide. Water had to be 
brought in casks from the springs or wells above town 
and was peddled about the streets. Philadelphia 
extended a mile along the river and but a few blocks 
back. Boston was clustered about the three hills on 
her peninsula. Annapolis was the most elegant city. 
Charleston was gay during its "season" when the 
Carolinian planters came in with their families, but 
correspondingly dull when they returned to their 
plantations. Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, 
with a fixed population of not much above one 
thousand, was the most stylish place on the continent 
during the sessions of the legislature. 

Town-officers included fire-wards, fence viewers, 
sealers of leather, informers of deer, cullers of staves, 
hog-reeves, haywards, scavengers, assay masters, 
keepers of the granary, and surveyors of the highways. 
The houses were poorly built and close together. 
Disastrous fires frequently occurred and fire com- 
panies were organized to respond to the alarm of the 
fire-ward. In 1752, the members of Hibernia fire 
company of Philadelphia promised to keep at hand 
" two leathern buckets, one large wicker basket with 
two handles, and one bag made of good oznaburgs or 
wider linen, containing four yards at least, furnished 
with a running string, fixed in the mouth thereof." 
When a cry of fire was heard in the night each 
member was to place two or more lights in his 



68 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

windows, or if his house was in danger, in every 
room to render easy the removal of his property, and 
to report for duty at every alarm with the bag, basket, 
and buckets/ 

Lotteries formed a recognized means of raising 
money. The practice had been inherited from Eng- 
land and was not considered wrong. It was used to 
build churches, to aid the deserving poor, to pave 
streets, to erect lighthouses, college buildings, canals, 
and bridges. In this way Faneuil Hall was rebuilt 
after its destruction by fire, and a battery was con- 
structed by a lottery for the defense of Philadelphia 
after the Quakers had defeated an appropriation of 
public funds for such a warlike purpose. 

^ Several of these agreements of voluntary fire companies are 
preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society Museum. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FRENCH-ENGLISH STRUGGLE FOR THE MISSISSIPPI 

VALLEY 

The chance allotment of territory among the 
Spanish, French and English has been described. 
With the expansion of their colonies a conflict would 
come. Rumors of the richness of the Mississippi 
valley soon crossed the mountains to the English. 
They argued that right of discovery on the coast ex- 
tended for the same width into the interior. Several 
of the royal governors had called the attention of the 
administration in England to the desirability of 
asserting their title and taking possession of the 
inland region before the French could do so. 

Governor Spots wood, of Virginia, even attempted 
such an expedition in 1716. Accompanied by gentle- 
men of Virginia, Avith rangers, Indians, pioneers, and 
servants, he set out for the west much as a feudal 
lord would have done in olden England. The com- 
pany ascended the Rappahannock to the source of one 
of its branches, named a peak Mount Georgia in 
honor of King George I. and descended to the Shen- 
andoah. Ascending the northern fork of that stream, 
the expedition reached possibly what is now Pendle- 
ton county, West Virginia. The govei'nor had 
brought " graying tools" in order to carve his king's 
title to the region, but the rock proved too hard and 
he contented himself with Inirying a bottle containing 

69 



70 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



the claims of the English. In eleven different kinds 
of liquor he and his party drank the health of the 
king, and returned to Williamsburg, having been 
absent the latter half of August and the first half of 
September. The governor perpetuated the memory 

of the unusual and 



interesting adven- 
ture by presenting 
each gentleman 
with a g o 1 d e n 
horseshoe and 
h i m 
of the 
Tramontane 
order. ^ 

Nothing came 
immediately of 
this attempt to 
take possession of 
the ' ' back coun- 




■mM^H 




dubbing 
Knig h t 



-v-v 



try," as the region 
was called. It was 
the frontier, the 
lurking place of 
the hostile Indian. 
The colonists were 
greatly interested 
in the habits of these natives as far as tlic^y could be 



POWHATAN , ^ , 

Hc\l this/rate cL fdlUcn vjhai C.J/'C-^nu^_^*^^ 
-uvi5 dJiucrcdtc him pn/ciiiT X^>*n 



jBoy 



X^ i 



POWHATAN'S COURT. (FROM AX OLD MAP OF 
VIRGINIA) 



1 Dr. William A. Carriithers, a Virginia novelist, founded on this 
incident his "Knights of the Horse-Shoe."' Horses were not so 
generally or so rouglily shod in the tide- water region as was neces- 
sary for this mountain travel. Hence the emblem selected for the 
Order. 



THE FRENCH-ENGLISH STRUGGLE 71 

inYestigated. Indeed this interest was not confined 
to the colonies. Drawings were made of Indian cere- 
monials and reproduced in England. Learned men 
who came from that country and missionaries who 
went among the Indians tried to identify them with 
the lost tribe of Israel, by comparing their ceremonies 
with those prescribed in the book of Leviticus. 
There was a rumor that certain tribes s^Doke Welsh 
and must have crossed from Wales in some way. 
But from whatever source he came, the Indian 
was inclined to dispute the advance of tlie white 
man. The latter was too wily for the savage. 
Witness the famous purchase of the "three days' 
walk."^ 

For many years the English were employed in 
filling the coast plain, engaging in ocean commerce 
and agriculture, building up a hardy race and uncon- 
sciously prex^aring for their first westward expansion. 
But when the growth of internal trade called atten- 
tion to the trans-mountain region, they found the 



1 In 1682, William Penn bargained with the Indians for a tract of 
land extending back from the Schuylkill as far as could be reached 
in a walk of three days. This was the savage method of measure- 
ment. He and the Indians started, but after walking one-half the 
allotted time, Penn grew fatigued and a temporary boundary was 
erected from which the walk was to be completed. Fifty years 
afterward, Penn having died in the meantime, his heirs met the 
Indians at the temporary boundary to complete the walk. But 
instead of the party walking together by known paths, the white 
men had hired three skilled walkers, who started by the compass, 
notwithstanding the protests of the Indians. In the allotted one 
and one-half d.ays, these pedestrians covered eiglity-six miles, 
although one of them died afterward from the effects. When a 
party subsequently went over the ground, it required four days. It 
was owing to this trick that the Indian wars in Pennsylvania first 
began and the good results of Friend William Penn's fair dealing 
were lost. See Egle's "History of Pennsylvania," page 442. 



72 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

savage not only in the way, but allied with their life- 
long enemy, the French. 

In this race for the western valley, the French had 
an immense advantage. Communication is abso- 
lutely essential between the different parts of any 
possession, and the interior waterways furnished the 
French with lines of communication. The St. Law- 
rence tapped the Great Lakes and they in turn 
brought the trader almost to the headwaters of the 
Mississippi. France was pre-eminently Roman Cath- 
olic and an ardent propagandist. The missionary 
accompanied the trader and sometimes preceded him. 
It was not long until the adventurous journeys of 
Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, and Hennepin had given 
France some kind of a claim to the Mississippi 
valley. Bancroft, the historian, makes a ratio in 
which the Fi'encli x^ossessed twenty parts out of 
twenty-five on the North American continent, leaving 
the Spanish but four and the English only one part. 

In occupying this claim, the numerous indentations 
of the lakes and the tributaries of the great rivers 
furnished a variety of routes to the French. One of 
the favorite roads of tlie traders lay up the Ottawa 
river from Montreal ; by portage to Lake Nipissing, 
an eastern arm of Lake Huron ; thence around to 
Green Bay and by portage to the Wisconsin and Mis- 
sissippi rivers. If the traveler turned to the south on 
Lake Michigan, an easy portage was found from the 
head of the Cliicago river to the Desplaines and 
Illinois rivers ; or on the southeast shore by the St. 
Joseph and Kankakee rivers. Another route lay up 
the St. Lawrence, over Lakes Ontario and Erie and 



THE FRENCH-ENGLISH STRUGGLE 73 

thence by one of the many portages to the Ohio 
river/ 

By the use of these great waterways the French 
had completely surrounded the English. The cities 
of Quebec and New Orleans, the commercial ends of 
the two great rivers, afforded them the command of 
all trade thereon. While their canoes were being 
driven rapidly over their waterways into the west, 
tlie English could but stare stupidly at the great 
Appalachian mountain chain which blocked all 
attempts to compete with their more fortunate neigh- 
bors. Not a navigable river of the plain touched the 
mountains. The Potomac and the Susquehanna ex- 
tended in that direction, but their courses were broken 
by frequent shoals and rapids. Some wagon roads 
had been roughly constructed, but the necessity for 
coastwise communication had i)i'evented their being 
built toward the west. In some regions the low lands 
bordering small lakes were filled with a mass of 
tangled undergrowth and briars through which it 
was impossible to make a way. 

But Saxon pluck was bound to win in the end 
against Gallic courage. The very ease with which 
the French took possession of the west proved their 
undoing. They spread rapidly, but temporarily. 
They were satisfied with the gain afforded by trading 

^ The student may find an interesting field of investigation in 
these historic portages. The portage was only the means to an end. 
Therefore scarcely a city is located on an old portage but there is a 
city at the mouth of every river leading from or to one. There is 
a Portage river and county in Ohio and a Portage covmtj^ in 
Indiana. Portage townships and villages are in Ohio, Indiana, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York. For Wisconsin see 
Thwaite's " Historic Waterways.'' 



74 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

and with a small share of the hunting. This did not 
interfere Avith tlie natural pursuits of the Indians, 
and they rapidly became the friends and allies of the 
French. The English advanced slowly, but took per- 
manent possession. They felled the trees, cleared the 
ground, cultivated the fields and developed indus- 
tries. Every waterfall Avas harnessed to a mill ; at 
every j^ortage a village began ; and at the head of 
navigation on every stream an incipient city arose. 

The destroyed forests and the cultivated fields ex- 
tending down to the water's edge soon interfered with 
the hunting and fishing of the Indian. If he fol- 
lowed the chase out into the field, the enraged set- 
tler punished him for destroying his crops. Small 
wonder that all the arts of the English were required 
to keep peace with the redskin. As a result of this 
steady advance pure English blood at last reached the 
mountains, to meet the French wandering trapper 
and the half-breed. Fronting the line of forts which 
the French had constructed from Quebec to New Or- 
leans was a line of English homes. ^^ 

The war was likely to be precipitated at some com- 
mon point and this proved to be the upper Ohio. 
The French regarded tlie Mississippi valley as em- 
bracing all the waters tributary thereto. In 1749 
Celeron de Bienville had gone down the Ohio, and 



^ On a " New Map of North America showing the Advantages 
obtained therein to England by the Peace," printed in England in 
1763, one may trace the line of French forts from Quebec to Florida. 
They include Richelieu. Sorel, La Galette, Frontenac, Toronto, 
Niagara, Du Quesne, Sandoski, Utawas, St. Ignace, Ponchartrain, 
St. Joseph, Le Rocher, Chartres, Stacjuado, Toulouse, Rosalie, 
Mobile, St. Rosa, St. Marks, Picolato, and Diego. 



THE FRENCH-ENGLISH STRUGGLE 75 

at intervals had buried six leaden plates indicating 
the title of the French to the land.^ Now the junction 
of the two rivers forming the Ohio was one of the 
great strategic points. It competed wdth the Cum- 
berland Gap for the title 
of gateway of the west. 
The charter limits of 
both Pennsylvania and 
Virginia extended beyond 
it. Therefore when the 
French began to plant 
forts in that region, the 
English governor of Vir- 
ginia promptly sent young 
George Washington as a 
messenger to warn them 
that they were trespass- 
ing. 

War in America would 
probably have arisen even 
if the home countries of 
the two nations had not 
oxK OK cK.oKox'H P..X.S choscn to mako war upon 

each other. The three 
periods of the French-English war (extending as a 
whole from 1690 to 1763) are reflexes of the old world 
contests ; but the last (1753 to 1763) commonly called 
the French-Indian war, was a struggle for the western 
lands iii America. It was an unavoidable friction in 



1 His name is sometimes written Celeron. The plate here repre- 
sented is in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society, 
Worcester, Massachusetts. 




76 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

tlie allotment of empire. For ten years the war 
went on at intervals, until in the sx)ring of 1763 the 
king's proclamation was read from the balcony of 
the State House in Boston and at Fort George in 
New York city, declaring that the French had signed 
away all right to every foot of land on the continent 
of North America. Even the Floridas, which France 
held in one of the many adjustments between Spain 
and her, were now turned over to the victorious Eng- 
lish. Spain was mistress from the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama to the MississiiDi^i ; England from that river to 
the Atlantic Ocean. The dream of a French colonial 
empire had passed away, to be revived only in the 
fertile brain of Napoleon. 

The gentlemen in various places assembled in con- 
gratidatory dinners, and the newspapers printed 
poems on the victory. At the March town meeting 
in Boston, James Otis was chosen moderator and in 
his speech declared: "The British Dominion and 
Power may now be said, literally, to extend from 
Sea to Sea, and from the Great Rivers to the Ends of 
the Earth."' 

But the actual transfer of land was only a small 
portion of the fruit of these French-Indian wars. 
The resulting debt formed one of the grounds for the 
taxation of the colonies by the English Parliament 
and led to their revolt. The mingling of regular and 
provincial soldiery had robbed the former of some of 
their glory and made them less dreaded by the latter ; 
the incapacity of British commanders, who had been 

^ The address is in the Boston Post Boy of March 21, 1763. 



THE FRENCH-ENGLISH STRUGGLE 77 

trained on the fields of Europe, was painfully mani- 
fest in Braddock's defeat. In contrast, the war had 
brought out the military talents of several young 
men, the most brilliant being George Washington, 
who had risen to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Virginia 
line,^ Perhaps the hardshij)s of his early trip to warn 
the French to leave the Ohio, and his surrender to a 
suj^erior force of them on a subsequent expedition, 
gave him a more suitable training than a European 
military school would have done. It was quite likely 
that the necessity for " doing things" in a new land 
would prove equal to the theoretical training of the 
old world. Here was but a forecast of the future. 
Colonial life was compelling self-help and begetting 
self-reliance. Intelligent action might in the future 
be 23itted against apparently superior training. This 
was to prove true not only in the Revolutionary war, 
which the colonies now had to face, but in their later 
contests as well. 

^ It is not without significance that four generals of the Revolu- 
tionary war saw service on Braddock's campaign: Washington, 
Gates, Charles Lee, and Stephen. 



CHAPTER VII 

NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 

All through the Revolutionary war the Americans 
had one thought in mind — independence. An inde- 
pendent government implies possession of land. How 
much of the continent should be included in the inde- 
pendent United States? Fortunately this question 
had been largely predetermined by the ante-Revolu- 
tionary boundaries. 

When the king of England, after the peace of 1763, 
found himself in possession of all of the continent 
east of the Mississippi, he knew that he could not 
make uniform English colonies of such divergent 
elements, and therefore he had created the province 
of Quebec to include the French people of the northern 
regions, and the territories of East and West Florida 
to cover the Spanish people in the south. The Eng- 
lish speaking colonies between were permitted to 
retain their boundaries, save that all the land lying 
beyond the sources of rivers which flowed into the 
Atlantic was erected into an Indian hunting-ground 
in which no grant of lands to settlers must be made. 
Whether the king wished to keep the Indians friendly 
by preventing the whites from encroaching on them, 
or whether he appreciated and felt compelled to check 
the growing power of the colonists, is uncertain. 
When the war against the king was begun the colo- 
nists were determined to ignore his decree and claim 

78 



NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 79 

to the MississipiDi, which was the western limit of 
English dominion. 

They were not to be shaken in this resolution by 
any argument based on the " Quebec Act," by which 
the Parliament in 1774 had tried to extend the 
jDrovince of Quebec down over the land lying north- 
west of the Ohio river. They claimed that the action 
was simply coercive and the rising war had prevented 
it being put into execution. Moreover, England had 
fought a war to keej) the French out of that region. 
How could it now be claimed as a part of ancient 
Quebec ? 

Early in the Revolutionary war, George Rogers 
Clark, a Virginia surveyor, had gone to the Kentucky 
country and led its hardy settlers in the defense of 
their homes against the Indian allies of the British. 
Under the authority of Virginia, Clark had organized 
and headed an expedition into the territory northwest 
of the Ohio. It was peopled by the French, but had 
been in possession of the British since 1763. Over- 
coming apparently insurmountable obstacles in that 
little-traversed region, wading in the cold waters of 
the spring floods, breaking through the thin ice, liv- 
ing on scanty rations, Clark and his men ca^Dtured 
and recaptured Vincennes and the other forts and 
towns within the district, and held them until peace 
was declared. Thus the right of conquest added to 
the claims for territory which the American commis- 
sioners would present when overtures for peace and 
independence should commence. 

So strong indeed were the claims of the Americans 
t^ the Mississippi as a western boundary, that they 



80 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

were not questioned when at last the unpopularity in 
England of the American war brought a crisis in 
I)olitics and made a further continuance of the con- 
test impossible. 

The boundary on the north was not so easily 
arranged. A northern boundary had been made 
necessary by the persistent refusal of the French 
Canadians to enter the rebellion, although invited in 
every way by the other colonies.^ It was stated in 
the House of Commons in debate that in the province 
of Quebec there were about 150,000 Roman Catholics 
to 360 adherents of the Church of England. These 
figures represented also the proportion of French to 
English. Differing thus in religion and race, it is 
perhaps fortunate that the Canadians did not enlist 
in the rebellion, since they must have proven a dis- 
tant and inharmonious element in the early making 
of the union. Lacking the Saxon training for self- 
government and the Saxon instinct for individual 
rights, they had not felt sorely the grievances under 
which the English speaking colonies smarted. After 



^ It is an interesting study to note that, of all the British colonies 
in the West Indies and America, the rebellion was finally confined 
to a strip of the mainland extending from New Hampshire to 
Georgia. The "stamp act" had been disobeyed in many colonies, 
but all stopped at that save those in the limits mentioned above. In 
this light one may pardon the hope of the English speaking colonies 
that Canada would join them. Early in 1776 a commission was 
sent to Canada, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, who had been in 
France and could speak French; Charles Carroll, who had been 
educated in France and was a Roman Catholic; and Samuel Chase, 
of Maryland. Carroll's brother, afterward a bishop, accompanied 
the commission to administer to the Roman Catholics in Canada 
and to use his influence. The aged Franklin soon returned and 
nothing came of the attempt. Nevertheless in the Articles of 
Confederation, provision was made for admitting Canada when she 
should apply. 



NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 81 

the revolution began to threaten, England soothed 
them by certain religious privileges. 

Between these French Canadians and the English 
speaking Americans, the Great Lakes and the St. 
Lawrence river seemed to form a natural boundary. 
But the river could not be followed to its mouth since 
the Canadians had settled on each side of it. There- 
fore, on the forty-fifth parallel, the boundary line 
turned due east until it struck the watershed dividing 
the streams flowing into the St. Lawrence from those 
flowing into the Atlantic. Remembering that the 
waterways were the early highways, one may see how 
appropriate this line was. It had been the southern 
boundary of Quebec in 1763. Since the watershed 
ran too far east, the St. Croix was used thence to 
the ocean. 

Since the St. Lawrence and four of the Great Lakes 
lay between the two countries as neutral waters, it 
was provided that their navigation should be held 
jointly by Canada and the United States, although 
the line of actual jurisdiction was necessarily fixed. 
This has proven a most fortunate arrangement. For 
over one hundred years the commerce of the two 
countries has used these great waterways with com- 
paratively no friction, and has grown to enormous 
proportions under such a sensible agreement. 



^ In later years two questions arose with England about this 
northern boundary line. On the northwest it was to run due west 
from the Lake of the Woods to the source of the Mississippi. The 
treaty-makers had been misinformed about the source of the Missis- 
sippi and the provisions could not be carried out. Also the name 
" St. Croix" was found to apply to several rivers in Maine. How- 
ever, both questions were amicably adjusted, the first in 1795 and 
the second in 1842. 



82 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Of the three boundaries that on the soutli caused 
the most trouble. During the progress of the war, 
many Americans had been led to question the dis- 
interested motives with Avhich France had aided them 
and also the assistance which Spain had given through 
France. Each nation would naturally be suspected 
of wanting: to regain a foothold east of the Missis- 
sippi. Therefore, whenever France and Spain sug- 
gested that the land lying south of the Ohio and 
west of the Alleghanies be kept as a neutral ground, 
the American commissioners offered serious objec- 
tions. Especially John Jay, who had been an Ameri- 
can agent in Spain, feared that it would not long 
remain neutral before being seized by the Spanish. 
However the Americans had no desire to extend their 
southern boundary over the Floridas peopled by 
French and Spaniards, and they made no objection 
when England turned them over to Spain as compen- 
sation for Gibraltar, still held by England. In the 
end, therefore, the United States extended intact 
from the Great Lakes to the Floridas, although the 
exact place where the latter began was uncertain.^ 

Little was known of the region beyond the Alleghar 
nies and it is doubtful whether the American com- 
missioners appreciated fully the prize which they 
had won. Certainly they did not appreciate the little 
use it would be without the control of the entire Mis- 

^ Certain Canadian writers assert that Maine should have been 
given to Canada, since it projects like a wedge into their territor3^ 
compelling freight to pass through the United States or to be carried 
a long way around. The same objection could be raised to the 
Province of Ontario, which projects down between Lake Ontario 
and Lake Huron into the United States. Two of the great trunk 
railway lines from Chicago to the east pass through it. 



NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 83 

sissippi river as an outlet for the products of the val- 
ley. Spain had been given the Floridas, and insisted 
upon thirty-two degrees and thirty minutes as tlie 
boundary line. Since the American boats passing 



t s s 

CONTlNExMTAL 

AND 

WEEKLY AD 


J O U R N A b 

E R T I S E R. 


T li U R S D A Y. April ;• , 


;. ,,. - ,.cr:T\-".i 


BOSTON: P«iMTao by J O H S 


J ■ i !,, ^ 



S T O N, ArsiL 3. -* 

Gendcman inifncdiately 

i::.^i^;^i^^:K. below this point would be in 

^S^ivLc^^^^'c Spanish territory, it was quite 

'';! Jf";''^:,'/*/ likely that Spain would soon 

prove a troublesome neighbor 

on the south. 

The news of the signing of 
the preliminaries of peace be- 
tween England and the United 
States, which ended the Revo- 
lutionary war, reached America 
^ by Chevalier Duquesne, who 
landed in PhiladeljDhia March 
24, 1783, being only thirty-six days out from 
Cadiz. Immediately the French minister, Luzerne, 
issued a proclamation from the press of the Pcnnsi/I- 
vania Packet and the glad, though not unex^Dected, 
news spread rapidly. Under a flag of truce, it was 
sent into New York, held by the British. Ten days 



84 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

later it Avas printed in the Boston newspapers in large 
type. 

The territory on the eastern side of the mountains 
occupied by the thirteen original colonies had com- 
prised about 341,752 square miles. The territory 
between the mountains and the Mississippi which 
they had Avon in the Avar amounted to 488,248 square 
miles. It is not surprising that the question of 
OAAmership of this A^ast prize should haA^e been raised. 
NeAv Hampshire, Rhode Island, NeAv Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, and DelaAvare had fixed Avestern 
boundaries and Avere shut out from claiming any of 
this Avestern region. Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
NcAV York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia held 
claims to the region, because of the boundaries giA^en 
in their charters and by an Indian treaty.^ The states 
AA^hich had no such claims insisted that this AAXstern 
land, AA^hich had been bought by the common blood 
and treasure, should be held for the common benefit. 
EA^entually the states haA'ing these claims ceded them 
to the United States, and the federal government 
became OAAmer of this vast tract. 

The national goA^ernment might have held this 
land as subject territory and have treated its future 
inhabitants as colonists. Such indeed had been the 
custom in past history. But under the guiding hand 
of Thomas Jefferson, all that portion lying north and 
AA^est of the Ohio riA'er, a total of 265,878 square 
miles Avas erected into a temporary territory, AA'hose 



1 These charters may be studied in Poore's "Constitutions and 
Charters of the United States. " Summaries of them are in Don- 
aldson's " Pubh'c Domain." 



NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 85 

inhabitants were to enjoy the rights and privileges of 
the old states, with few exceptions. Further, even 
these exceptions were to be removed, and any por- 
tion erected into a state on a perfect equality with 




PROPOSED STATES FROM NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

the other states whenever a sufficient number of 
inhabitants should render such action advisable.^ 

^ The exact words in the Ordinance of 1787 governing the North- 
west Territory are : 

"And whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand 
free inhabitants, therein, such state shall be admitted by its dele- 
gates into the Congress of the United States on an equal footing 
with the original states in all respects whatever." The draft of 
1784 provided for states in the Territory according to parallels and 
natural boundaries. For them Jefferson proposed names as shown 
in the accompanying sketch map. 



86 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Such was the simple origin of the vast endowment 
of the United States, commonly known as " the pub- 
lic domain." It has been added to from time to time 
but has always been under the care and control of the 
central government and under the liberal rule first 
adopted. The inhabitants of section after section 
upon rea:ching the required nunil)er (GO, 000) have 
been admitted to statehood, until to the original thir- 
teen states there have been added tliirty-two. Four 
districts are still territories awaiting their time. 

The original thirteen' states embraced only 341,752 
square miles. The states added to them, including 
the states yet to be made, contain 2,666,854 square 
miles. Thus the mother has been seven times sur- 
passed by the daughters. Yet these new states were 
not under the control of the old thirteen. They were 
not admitted to statehood by them, but by the 
national or federal government. Hence tliey pa}^ 
their allegiance to the real mother — the union. It is 
readily seen that the public domain has tlius come to 
be a great union-making element, although quite un- 
intentionally. The states originally owned and sur- 
rendered this land. But the predominance of their 
power has been dealt a deadly blow by the gift so be- 
stOAved. 

The story of the disorder, the rebellions, the gen- 
eral loss of the law-abiding sense, during tlie attempt 
at national government under the Articles of Confed- 
eration, has been told many times. ^ It was a result 

^ John Fiske has fastened upon this period the name "The Crit- 
ical Period of American History," from his excellent book bearing 
that title. Professor McMaster, in the lirst volume of his " History 



NATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 87 

of tlie disorders of the Revolutionary war as well as 
the weakness of the frame of government. Yet we 
sometimes forget that in the midst of this " critical 
period," the much abused Continental Congress 
originated the great domain held for the good of the 
public, and set a pattern for the future expansion of 
the nation by the addition of new states from the vig- 
orous west. 

of the People of the United States, " describes the troubles of 
those days. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 

Distracted by such disorders, the people of the 
United States had no leisure after the Revolution in 
which to contemplate the vastness and richness of 
their first domain. Indeed, because of its vast extent 
much of it was unexj)lored and unknown. Fifteen 
hundred miles inland from the sea it extended. It 
occupied the fertile Atlantic coast plain, varying from 
fifty to three hundred miles in width. It crossed the 
wooded Alleghanies. It embraced the exceedingly 
fertile valleys of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Ten- 
nessee, and their tributaries. It meant 830,000 square 
miles of possibility. 

But when the sentimental came down to the prac- 
tical, a great difficulty was foreseen in the lack of 
communication between the different parts. There 
were three great drainage basins — the Atlantic, the 
Great Lakes, and the Gulf. In each of these basins 
the waterways furnished almost a network of com- 
munication, but between the heads of the different 
streams were irritating portages or carrying-places. 
The courses of the streams were in many instances 
interru]3ted by falls and ra]3ids. Some of them 
during certain portions of the year were dried up or 
too low for transportation. 

Between the great drainage basins themselves were 
watersheds more or less difficult to pass. The 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 89 

Alleghany mountains especially formed a vast bar- 
rier on the west of the Atlantic basin, with but 
one accessible way oyer them. This way had been 
found as a result of the first demand for western 
expansion and it had made the beginnings of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee. 

The first traders from Virginia and Pennsylvania 
had learned from the Indians to go up the Potomac 




FIRST ROADS TO THE WKST 



river to the mouth of Wills Creek, where now stands 
Cumberland, Maryland. Thence they followed the 
trail over the intervening ridges to the Youghiogheny, 
down which they floated into the Monongahela and 
so into the Ohio. A trading company of tide-water 
Virginia gentlemen,^ among them the two half- 



1 In 1748, Thomas Lee and twelve other persons in Virginia and 
Maryland organized the Ohio Company and were given five hundred 
thousand acres of land by the king. Two-fifths were to be located 
at once and to be free from any tax for ten years, provided one hun- 
dred families should be settled on the lands within seven years and 
defended by a fort and garrison. Two cargoes of goods suited to 



90 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

brothers of George Washington, had secured from the 
king a grant of land between the Monongahela and 
the Ohio. They enlarged and improved the Wills 
Creek road, but were prevented from making their 
proposed settlements by the encroaching French. In 
1754, Colonel George Washington, ^ of the Virginia 
militia, on an expedition against the French, tried to 
follow this road. He complained to the governor of 
Virginia : ' ' We have been two days making a bridge 
across the river (Youghiogheny) and have not done 
yet. . . . The great difficulty and labor that it 
requires to mend and alter the road prevent our 
marching above three or four miles a day."^ Gen- 
eral Braddock used the same road on his disastrous 
campaign, and henceforth it was known as Braddock 's 
road. Another road north of and parallel to the 
Braddock road had been made by the Forbes or 
Bouquet expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758. 
It was called the Raystown road, from the farthest 
western settlement on it. 

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was the rallying place for 
travel on each of these roads. From Carlisle to the 
junction of the rivers forming the Ohio, by the Rays- 

the Indian trade were imported, but the settlement was hindered 
by fear of the French and Indians. After only four years of actual 
existence the company disbanded, at considerable pecuniar}^ loss to 
its members. It was the forerunner of the "Walpole grant." See 
Sparks's '"Washington," vol. 11., page 478, and following. 

1 George Washington was an adjutant general witli the rank of 
major in the Virginia militia wlien he was only nineteen. He was 
appointed to command a military expedition to the Oliio when lie 
was twenty-one. He was made lieutenant-colonel at twenty- two 
and commander-in-chief of tlie Virginia forces at twenty-three. 
He was forty-three when he accepted the command of the Amer- 
ican forces in the Revolutionary war witli tho rank of general. 

-From Sparks's "Washington." vol. II., page 15, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 91 

town road, was a distance of one hundred and jiinety- 
three miles over a way which was little more than a 
cleared path through the forests and across the moun- 
tains. The Wills Creek road had been much better 
made and was therefore usually chosen, although it 
was nineteen miles longer. Water travel also 
alleviated its hardships for no inconsiderable por- 
tion of the way. 

In thus using tlie Potomac river, the Virginians 
were simply taking advantage of the provision of 
mother Nature. It was the only stream on the At- 
lantic plain at all navigable whose head lay toward 
the western mountains. The Connecticut, the Hud- 
son, and the Delaware led toward the north. The 
Mohawk came from the west, but it was impeded by 
falls and its head lay in the lake region of central 
New York amidst an impenetrable growth of briars. 
The Susquehanna was shallow and full of rapids. 
Even had it been navigable, its western branch made 
but a tortuous route over the mountains. 

On the other hand, the Potomac was really an arm 
of the sea extending two hundred miles inland to 
Alexandria. Lord Fairfax,^ nearly three score years 
before fulfillment, made a prophecy that the future 
"seat of empire" would be located on this river. 
But above Alexandria a series of rapids began which 

^Thomas Fairfax, sixth baron, came to the American colonies 
because of an alleged disappointment in love and settled in Vir- 
ginia, on the vast estate he had inherited from his mother, the 
daughter of Lord Culpepper. This embraced over five million acres 
between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. Some of it was sur- 
veyed by his young friend, George Washington. Near Winchester, 
Fairfax erected a temporary residence preparatory to a great manor 
house. This bachelor seat he called Greenway Court. He was 
grieved to see Washington take the rebel side in the Revolutionary 



92 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

culminated in the Great Falls, a prime hindrance to 
navigation. It was with mingled feelings of admira- 
tion and regret that the Virginians viewed these 
falls. 

HoAvever, the art of man could amend the work of 




GREAT FALLS OF THE POTOMAC 



nature. The year following the close of the Eevolu- 

war and it is said died of a broken heart upon hearing of the sur- 
render of Cornwallis. A stanza of an old song runs: 

Then up rose Joe all at the word, 

And took his master's arm, 
And to the bed he softly led 

The lord of Greenway farm. 

And there he called on Britain's name 

And oft he wept full sore, 
And sighed! "Thy will, O Lord, be done," 

And word spake never more. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 93 

tionary war, the state of Virginia organized the 
*'Potomack Navigation Company" for improving the 
navigation of the Potomac from tide water to Wills 
Creek, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. 
Owing to his exertions for the enterprise. General 
George Washington was given fifty shares of stock in 
the company.^ He afterwards made a personal in- 
spection of the river from Harper's Ferry to the 
Falls. His imagination saw it part of a great trans- 
portation system to the Ohio river. Thence the way 
would lead down to the mouth of the Muskingum and 
up that river to the Cuyahoga portage ; down the 
Cuyahoga to Lake Erie and thence to Detroit. He 
saw another possible route from the Ohio to Lake 
Erie along the Beaver river and still another along 
the Scioto. Yet the first wave of western immigra- 
tion turned from the Potomac southward rather than 
northward. This was due partly to the nature of the 
people. 

The Virginians and their neighbors were more 
migratory than the colonists farther north. They 
were a country peo^Dle, agriculturists and hunters. 
They were accustomed to solitude, with only the rifle 
for a companion. Their chief crop, tobacco, was ex- 
haustive and new soil was constantly needed. Slave 
labor was extensive rather than intensive in its 
nature. It did not cultivate the ground thoroughly 



^ Washington was a wealthy man and accepted the stock simply 
as a trust to accumulate for some charitable purpose. In his will 
the object was stated as "the endowment of a university to be 
established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the 
auspices of the general government." Attempts have been made 
at various times looking to the fulfillment of Washington's wish. 



04 THE EXPANSTOX OF THE AMERICAX PEOPLE 

and intelligently. Kow land was constantly roqinr(?d. 
Civilization pressed along the frontier line which 
was being pushed out through the southern Alle- 
glianies. Thoughts arose of a new empire toward 
the west. Restless pioneers like Daniel Boone, "the 
Columbus of the land," were preparing the way for 
another expansion. 




E(X)NK'S ADVENTURE IN KENTUCKY 



The treaty of Fort Stanwix (now Utica) , New York, 
gave the white man a right to penetrate the trans- 
Alleghanian region, concerning which he had heard 
so many stories from its former aboriginal possessors. 
There were great meadows sparsely covered with trees 
under wdiicli the "blue grass" grew.^ There were 

^The adjective "blue" is applied to a species of grass in England 
as well as in Kentucky, Texas, and Montana. Every species is 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 05 

"mineral spnno;s" whose waters gave various tastes. 
There were "salt licks" where tlie ground had been 
lowered for the spaee of acres by tlie deer and buffalo 
wliicli had come tli(;re for yeai's to lick the salty earth. 
Tlu^ animals could be depended on for a constant sup- 




A KEXTUCKY BUFFALO PATH 



ply of food and the ground for the ever necessary salt. 
Tlie buffalo was the early pathfinder. His huge 
bulk tore a >vay through the underl)rush and his hoofs 
wore smooth the adopted paths between water courses 
and feeding places. Buffalo paths may yet be traced 
in many places in the middle west. In searching 
for a way from the western Virginia valleys to the 

noted for the pasture and hay it alTords. Tlie Kentucky bhie grass 
occupies a limestone region and grows in the partial shade of open 
woods. Its boundaries are distinctly marked by its vegetation. 



96 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Kentucky region, Daniel Boone/ and his hardy com- 
panions found that all buffalo paths converged at 
the Cumberland Gap. In 1769 he laid out a road 
two hundred miles long, passing through the Gap to 
the blue grass region of central Kentucky. Four 
years later the Virginia legislature accepted this as 




THE \VILDERXE3S ROAD 



the legal road to their Kentucky possessions and 
made elaborate preparations for imjiroving it under 
a guard of soldiers. The Indian title had been 
purchased, but many Indians refused to abide by the 
treaty. Little was accomplished on the road and it 
remained simply a track for the horseman or footman. 
All goods had to be carried on pack saddles.^ It was 
thirty years after Boone had traced the road before it 



^ Daniel Boone will always stand as the type of a backwoodsman. 
He possessed great powers of endurance. Upon one occasion he is 
said to have walked eight hundred miles in sixty-two days. When 
his daughter with the daughter of a neighbor was captured by the 
Indians, Boone overtook and rescued them before they had gone 
forty miles from Boonesborough. This adventure has been described 
and portrayed many times. An old print preserved in the Congres- 
sional Library at Washington is shown on page 94. As usual the 
artist shows but slight appreciation of the dress worn on the frontier. 

^ The pack saddle was made from the fork of a tree whose sides 
happened to curve to fit the sides of the horse. Upon it the goods 



I 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 97 

was made passable for wagons, and then the expense 
was borne by public contribution. Five years later 
the Kentucky legislature adopted the road and placed 
tolls on it for its reiDair. This was the famous 
'' Wilderness road,"^ a name familiar to every early 
settler in Kentucky and Tennessee. Eventually it 
crossed the Ohio at the Falls (Louisville) and passing 
the French town of St. Vincent (Vincennes, Indiana), 
reached the French settlement in Illinois. 

The emigrants bound for Tennessee left the 
Wilderness road at the Powell river or turned south 
along the Clinch and the Holston in southwestern 
Virginia. Jonesboro was founded as the frontier 
town in Tennessee, but many pioneers i)ushed on to 
Knoxville and even founded Nashville on the site of 
a deserted French village. Ten years before the 
Revolution a regular road was opened from Camp- 
bell's Station to Nashville, over wliich parties were 
escorted at stated times by detachments of troops. 
The North Carolinians learned to follow the French 
Broad and Wautauga rivers directly over the moun- 
tains to the new country. By the close of the Revo- 
lution there were probably ten thousand inhabitants 
in what is now the state of Tennessee, then a district 
of North Carolina. 



to be carried were fastened. Finding a good fork was often no easy- 
task. It is said that the eye of a preacher holding service at a camp 
meeting in the woods once chanced to light upon a good crotch in 
a tree above him, but he announced that no attempt would be made 
to secure it before the conclusion of the services. 

1 Between Crab Orchard and the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky 
the railroad several times crosses the Wilderness road. It may be 
traced from the car windows. The full extent of the road is seen 
in the accompanying map taken from the publications of the Filson 
Club of Louisville, Kentucky. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE (CON- 
TINUED) 

Incident to the peopling of tliis new country there 
could not fail to be some friction. James Harrod 
had founded Harrodsburg, Kentucky, under the Vir- 

_ ginia royal pat- 
ronage. But 
many argued that 
. this new land be- 
longed to the In- 
dians and not to 
King George. 
Richard Hender- 
son, a wealthy 
North C a r o 1 i- 
nian, at a Cher- 
' okee council on 
the Wautauga, 
bought from 
them all the land 
lying south of the 
- Ohio and bet ween 
the Kentucky and 
the Cumberland rivers. Disregarding the proclama- 
tions of the governors of both Virginia and North Car- 
olina, Henderson in 1775 organized the company of 




DANIEL BOONE = 



^ From an old sketch 
West Virginia. 



in the State Museum at Charleston, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 00 

"The Proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania " and 
marched his colonists into Kentucky, with Daniel 
Boone as guide. 

At Boonesborough they constructed a "station" 
consisting of a quadrangle of huts with a projecting 
blockhouse at each corner. A number of hunters 
and adventurers crowded into the new state of Tran- 
sylvania. Order was maintained and Henderson 
ruled like a feudal lord of olden time. A house of 
representatives was chosen and six laws passed. One 
forbade Sabbath breaking and profanity, and another 
encouraged the breeding of fast horses. There were 
probably two hundred and fifty white men at Boones- 
borough and but few white women. In a short time 
the citizens grew tired of Henderson's exacting rule. 
The state of Virginia dissolved the revolutionary state 
of Transylvania, appeasing Henderson and his sons 
by giving each two hundred thousand acres of land. 

A Virginia court for Kentucky county met at 
Boonesborough the year of Independence. Later it 
ordered a court house to be built in a safe place. 
There was to be room for the court in one end and 
for two juries in the other. A jail was also ordered 
to be made of hewed or sawed logs nine inches thick. 
Around the isolated site of these buildings Danville 
arose and so claims to have been the first capital. 
There was a great respect for the law among these 
early people in the wilderness. Controversies involv- 
ing personal honor were settled without the interven- 
tion of the law ; but the rights of property were 
grounded in the hope of public justice. The county 
seat was a general place of resort, the number of 

LofC. 



100 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 




STATE CAPrTf)T, OF KKXTTCKV. 1796 



attendants at court as well as the number of cases 
decreasing during the summer or working months. 
The court house was often a log hut or a dwelling con- 
verted for the nonce into a place of justice. Much 

more elegant was the 
state house at Frankfort 
as pictured in the east- 
ern magazines. It was 
described as an " elegant, 
three-story limestone 
structure, in a country 
where the eye is seldom 
gratified with a building 
superior to a log hut." Any Kentuckian who rode 
into Frankfort viewed this building with pardonable 
pride as he tied his horse to the " hitching rack" 
which encircled the front. 

After the close of the Revolutionary war, immigra- 
tion spread rapidly to the western portion of the state 
along the Ohio river. Many began to come down 
that stream from Pittsburg to various disembarking 
points. Limestone (now Maysville, Kentucky) was 
a favorite place. Lower down were the Falls of the 
Ohio, a landmark and meeting place for the Indians 
and French. Near the portage around the Falls 
arose a village at first called Beargrass Settlement, 
but afterwards named "Louisville" for the French 
king who had aided the American cause. It con- 
tained probably the first store in the state. Louis- 
ville was founded just one hundred and seventy years 
after the settlement of Jamestown. So long it had 
taken to cross the mountains. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 101 

Evidences of civilization soon appeared as a proph- 
ecy of the future. In 1786 the Danville Political 
Club, a debating society, was organized to meet every 
Saturday night. It flourished for many years and 
discussed such questions as the Indian title to the 
lands in America, the best qualification of suffrage, 
and the expediency of Kentucky separating from Vir- 
ginia. The following year appeared the first number 
of the Kentucky Gazette, printed at Lexington by John 
Bradford. In 1780 the Transylvania University (now 
Kentucky University) was chartered. These fron- 
tiersmen were patriotic. The Virginia Independent 
Chronicle of September 3, 1788, contained an account 
of the celebration of tlie previous fourth of July at 
Lexington, Kentucke.^ 

The booth in which the dinner was prepared, was constructed in 
the form of a cross. In the centre was a sideboard twelve feet 
square ; in each wing was a table thirty feet long ; the roof was an 
arch twentyfour feet high ; in the centre over the side board was 
erected a platform fourteen feet high, on which was placed a band 
of music consisting of fourteen instruments ; there were arched win- 
dows amounting to fourteen, and four large arched doors ; on each 
table were fortynine dishes, in all an hundred and ninety-six. . . . 
We were at different periods saluted by fourteen riflemen's firing to 
the number of fourteen rounds. We danced on the green till six 
o'clock in the evening, when we retired to Capt. Young's Tavern, 
where after drinking tea we danced a sufiicient time ; when an ele- 
gant supper was provided by that gentleman ; after partaking of 
the delicacies of which, and spending our time till three o'clock in 
the morning, as between tea and supper, we finished the rejoicings 
consecrated to that auspicious day. During the whole time the 

^ The attempt to imitate the Indian name for the region caused 
much variety in the early spelling of the word "Kentucky." 
Kaintucke, Kantucke and Caintuck were different forms. Some 
people still speak of " Old Caintuck. " An act of the state legisla- 
ture authorized the modern spelling. 



102 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

greatest sobriety and oeconomy reigned triumphant (to the honour 
of the company be it said) and the greatest marks of approbation 
and satisfaction were visible in every countenance. 

The Kentucky country was shown in a map made 
by John Filson/ who came from Pennsylvania to 
enter land in Kentucky about 1784. He gained his 
data from descriiDtions of residents. He carried tlie 
map back to Delaware to be printed. It shows fifty 
forts, eight villages and three counties. There were 
also numerous " stations." ^ For several years a con- 
test went on between these progressive and restless 
people of Kentucky and the parent state of Virginia, 
which was ended in 1792 by the admission of Ken- 
tucky to the Union. Likewise the attempts of the 
Tennessee pioneers to gain independence of North 
Carolina created, for a short time, the revolutionary 
state of Franklin under Governor John Sevier.^ It 

' Filson was the prophet of learning in Kentucky. The society 
named for him in Louisville is active in collecting and preserving 
material relating to early Kentucky history. Some of the illustra- 
tions used in this chapter appear through Ihe kindness of its presi- 
dent, Colonel R. T. Durrett. Filson has been unduly ridiculed for 
proposing the name of Losantiville (ville or village anti opposite to 
on the mouth of L the Licking river) for the site of what is now 
Cincinnati. Tlie proposition was but part of the classic spirit of 
the day. The fate of Filson is unknown, as is that of Harrod, the 
founder of Harrodsburg. Each perished in the solitude of the early 
forests. 

2 This word was originally applied to an established place of halt- 
ing along the roads frequented by emigrants. It was usually the 
house of a settler where food and lodging could be obtained. On 
the frontier proper it was a barricaded settlement. A village some- 
times gathered aljout a station, retaining the name. A colony of 
foreigners might constitute a station. Among the celebrated 
stations in Kentucky were Bryant's. Clark's, and Low Dutch. 

^The story of this military hero, revolutionary governor, outlaw, 
prisoner, legal governor, and member of Congress, may be found in 
many places. He named his temporary state in honor of Benjamin 
Franklin. Professor Turner, of the University of \Yisconsin, 
describes fully these revolutionary states in the first volume of the 
American Historical Revieiv. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE 103 

was suj)pressed by the parent state, but its admission 
to the Union in 1796 as the state of Tennessee ended 
the dispute. 

Only when the hardships of these pioneers are 
brought vividly before one does he realize the will 
power necessary to overcome them. Even trivial 
affairs frequently bore hard, as the writer of the fol- 
lowing lines shows : ^ 

thurs (May) 30th (1775) We set out again and went dovv^n to Elk 
gardin and then suplied our Selves With Seed Corn and Irish tators 
then went on a littel way and turned my hors to drive before me 
and he got scard and ran away threw Down the Saddel Bags and 
broke three of our powder goards and Abrams beast Burst open a 
walet of corn and lost a good Deal and made a turrabel flustration 
amongst the Reast of the Horses Drakes mair run against a sapling 
and noct it down we cacht them all agin and went on and lodged at 
John Duncans 

Sunday 23rd — this morning the peopel meets and draws for chois of 
lots this is a very warm day 

monday 24th — we all view our lots and some Dont like them. . . , 
tuesday 25th — in the eavning we git us a plaise at the mouth of the 
creek and begin clearing 

Wednesday 26th — We begin Building us a house and a plaise of De- 
fense to Keep the indians off this day we begin to live without 
bread 

thursday 27th — Raney all Day But We still keep about our house 
Satterday 29th — we git our house kivered with Bark and move our 
things into it at Night and Begin housekeeping Eanock Smith 
Robert Whitledge and myself. . . . 

tuesday 2nd — I went out in the morning and killed a turkey and 
come in and got some on for my breakfast and then went and sot in 
to clearing for Corn. 

1 Extracts from the journal of William Calk, traveling from 
Prince Williams County, Virginia, to Boonesborough, Kentucky. 
Printed in full in vol. II. of the Filson Club Publications. 



CHAPTER X 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 

The causes which led to the peopling of the region 
south of the Ohio river before that lying to the north 
may be summed up : 

1. Ease of access, as shown in the preceding 
chapter. 

2. The restless nature of the rural population in 
the states immediately east. 

3. The quieting of the Indian claim to the region. 

4. Ownership of the land being vested in the states 

of Virginia and North 
Carolina and not dis- 
puted, as was that of 
the region lying north 
of the Ohio river. 

When the several 
states holding these 
disputed claims north 
of the river yielded 
them to the Congress 
under the articles of 
Confederation, as de- 
scribed in C h a p t e r 
VII, that body ac- 
cepted the land as a 
trust until the number of inhabitants should warrant 
the creation of new states from it. It is impossible to 

104 





^r^^2\ 




V0W^ 


^ JiQS^:;^:,;^^^^^ 






vc?r 



,AXD CLAIMS YIKLUKl) IN THE XORTHWKST 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 105 

say who first conceived the idea of selling these lands 
for the benefit of the public treasury. It was a wide 
departure from the lavish granting of tracts by the 
king over which jurisdiction only was retained. Con- 
gress placed under the Board of the Treasury the dis- 
posal of this public land lying north and west of the 
Ohio river and created the "Northwest Territory." 

In many of the older states, especially in the south, 
no surveys of the land had been made and settlers 
were allowed to make their own boundaries by "toma- 
hawk marks" on the trees. Much land was left 
between these farms and frequent litigation ensued. 
Profiting by this experience, Congress determined to 
be more systematic with its lands and appointed 
Thomas Hutchins " Geographer of the United 
States," and ordered him to make a survey of the 
public lands x^reparatory to offering them for sale. 

Hutchins had been a royal military engineer on the 
Bouquet expedition and had planned a system of sur- 
veys for the frontier lands. To satisfy the jealous 
states, he was given thirteen assistants, one from each 
state. Only eleven appeared in 1786, when he began 
his work by running a line due north from the south- 
west corner of Pennsylvania until it crossed the Ohio 
river. ^ This line prolonged would make the boundary 
between Pennsylvania and the Northwest Territory. 
At the point of crossing the river a line was run due 
west at right angles to the north line. By running 
parallel lines at distances of six miles from these two 
lines, a huge "gridiron" with spaces six miles square 
was spread over the land. These squares were called 

^ See sketch map on page 113. 



106 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

" townshi2:)s," an adaptation of tlie New England 
division known as a " town." 

The final method of surveying the public land as 
arranged by Congress differs in certain particulars 
from the first directions to Hutchins, although the 
"rectangular system" has always formed the basis of 
operations. A row of townships north and south was 
called a "range." Each township was subdivided 
into thirty-six equal squares called sections. Each 
section was a mile square and contained 640 acres of 
land. The section was subdivided by emphasizing 
the middle cross lines into groups of fours or 
"quarters," designated hy northeast, southeast, 
etc. 

It was found desirable to erect north and south 
lines at different places to be called "principal 
meridians" and to form correcting and starting 
points. The first one is the state line between Ohio 
and Indiana. Upwards of thirty of these lines have 
been established as the surveying has moved west- 
ward. Across these meridians, "base lines" have 
been run at riglit angles to preserve the rectangular 
system. From the principal meridians, ranges are 
numbered east and west and from the base lines 
townshii3S are numbered north and south. By this 
arrangement it is possible to describe the exact loca- 
tion of a tract of land. 

For instance, assume that the township whose 
southwest corner is shown in the accompanying dia- 
gram is number four north of the base line and in 
range five west of the third principal meridian. The 
tract of land marked "X" lies in section 31 of the 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 107 

township and would be described as the northwest one- 
fourth of the southwest one-fourth of section 31 in 
township four north and range five west of the third 
meridian. It 
would be ab- 
breviated into 
the N. W. i of 
the S. W. i of 
Sec. 31, T. 4. 
N., R. 5. W. 
of 3rd P. M. 
Thetracf'Z" 
is N. E. i of 
N.E. iof Sec. 
31, T. 4. N., 
R. 5. W. of 
3rd P. M.^ 

Congress 
made all possi- 
ble arrange- 
ments to suit the needs of prospective purchasers of 
land except to accommodate small i^urchasers. That 
was a later idea. In the first range, townships bearing 
even numbers w^ere to be sold entire ; those bearing odd 
numbers in groups. In the next range the order was 
reversed, and so on. A minimum price of one dollar 
per acre was established. In every township, lot six- 
teen was reserved for the maintenance of x)ublic 
schools and one-third of all gold, silver, lead, and cop- 



I- 




19 




20 


21 


UJ 

Z 


30 


29 


28 






I 

1 
1 


z 


32 






X 


a 


... 


33 






1 














TOWNSHIP LINE 


SOUTH 



CORNER OF A TOWNSHIP, PUELIC LAND SURVEY 



1 This illustration was chosen purely by chance, but if followed 
up on a sectional map the tracts will be found to lie near Highland, 
Madison County, Illinois. 



108 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

per mines was kept for the benefit of the general 
government. A public highway was to run along 
each section line and a schoolhouse to be located at 
alternate crossings of these roads. Thus no settler 
would be more than a half mile from a public road or 
much farther than a mile from a schoolhouse/ 

The surveyors worked rapidly under the direction 
of Hutchins and by 1787 had laid off the first " seven 
ranges"^ from the eastward, and the land was thrown 
on the market. But the political difficulties of the 
day distracted public attention. It was feared that 
the government was too feeble to protect purchasers 
from Indian raids. Also, many people who might 
otherwise have purchased from the United States had 
claims to " bounty lands" which they hoped to locate 
in the Northwest Territory. These bounty lands 
were the fruits of the dark days of the Revolutionar}^ 
war, when the Congress had been obliged in two 
emergencies to encourage enlistment in the army by 
the ]3romise of "wild" land. Many of the states 
which then laid claims to western land had made 
similar promises. 

1 Three variations of locating highways are shown in different 
parts of the United States. In the older states the roads pass along 
fields or around hills by easy ascent, according to no regular system. 
In the level regions of the states, at one time in the public domain, 
the roads stretch away in straight lines and at mile intervals, 
according to the system of surveys. In the uplands of these new 
states one often sees an abandoned government road running 
straight up the side of a hill and near by the improved county road 
reaching the summit by an easy grade. Common sense usually 
rises superior to any system. 

^Tlie "geographer's line," as Hutchins's due west line is called, 
was ran only forty-two miles, or seven ranges of six miles each, 
w^hen the work was stopped through fear of the Indians. The line 
can be traced in some of the adjacent county boundaries in Ohio. 
It ends near Bolivar, Ohio. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 109 

Doubtless around the camp fires numerous discus- 
sions took place about the possible value of tlie lands 
to be received, and many visions arose in the minds 
of the future agriculturists. No sooner had the lands 
north of the Ohio river come into the hands of the 
general government than a petition reached Congress 
from two hundred and eighty-five officers residing in 
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New 
York, New Jersey, and Maryland, for the grant of a 
tract of land bounded by Lake Erie, Pennsylvania, 
the Ohio river, and a meridian beyond the Scioto 
river. Nothing came immediately of the scheme, but 
it was revived three years later at a meeting of "land 
certificate" holders at the Bunch of Grapes tavern in 
Boston. Among their number was General Benjamin 
Tupper, who had been a substitute surveyor on 
Hutchins's staff. He was turned back at Pittsburg 
by the Indian scare, but had been sufficiently near 
the Ohio country to hear of its wonders. He aroused 
the enthusiasm of the company by his descriptions of 
the land along the Ohio ; the great sycamore trees ; 
the streams abounding with fish ; the exceedingly 
fertile soil.^ General Parsons, who had descended 
the Ohio to the Falls, corroborated tlie stories of 
his comrade, Tupper.^ Hutchins was consulted 
and advised settling on the Ohio river rather 
than the shore of Lake Erie, because of accessi- 

^ Tupper was a Massachusetts soldier, who served in the French 
wars, the Revolutionary war, and the Shays rebellion. On a second 
journey to the Ohio he served on the staff of Hutchins. An account 
of his funeral on the frontier may be found in the Pennsylvania 
Magazine of History and Biography, January, 1888. 

2 Parsons was a Connecticut Revolutionary officer who had gone 
to the Ohio as a commissioner to treat with tlie Miami Indians. 



110 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

bility. He pointed out the mouth of the Muskin- 
gum river as a most favorable spot for the settlement 
to begin. 

The name "Ohio ComiDany of Associates" was 
adopted and the organization sent Parsons and after- 
ward Dr. Manasseh Cutler ^ to the Congress to pur- 
chase sufficient land for its purpose. But Cutler's 
mission was broader than the mere purchase of so 
many acres. Until erected into a state tlie land 
would presumably l)e under the general government. 
The New England soldiers had inherited a veneration 
for the forms of free government and the state 
encouragement of education and morality. Hence 
they were much concerned in the kind of rule the 
United States w^as to give them with the land. 
Having just emerged from a monarchy, the people in 
their state constitutions had hedged the individual 
about with many precautions lest his rights be 
encroached upon by the central government. A "bill 
of rights" must be assured by the Congress. 

When Cutler arrived in New York, the Congress 
happened to be considering this very question of a 
government for the Northwest Territory, regulations 
for which had been drawn up by Jefferson three 3^ears 
before. At Cutler's suggestion, Congress added to 
the general provisions of the ordinance a set of six 
articles x^i'oviding for : 

1. Freedom of religion. 

^ The Rev. Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts, served as chaphiin 
in the American army d uring the Revolutionary war. He was pastor 
of the Congregational society in Hamlet parish. Ipswich, for fifty- 
two years. The degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by 
Yale for his attainments in natural science. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS HI 

2. Habeas corpus, bail, rights of property, sacred- 
ness of contracts, etc. 

3. Establishment of schools and maintenance of 
good faith with the Indians. 

4. Non-alienation of the territory, just taxation of 
the inhabitants, non-taxation of state lands, and free 
navigation of waters. 

5. Arrangement of boundaries for states to be 
created from the territory. 

6. No slavery to be permitted, but fugitive slaves 
to be returned. 

A vast amount of extravagant praise has been 
expended upon the provisions of this Ordinance of 
1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory.^ 
The wisdom and foresight of its framers have been 
the subjects of frequent eulogy. It is said most 
untruthfully to have prevented slavery nortli of the 
Ohio.^ Yet it was simply a business transaction on 
sound principles. Congress wanted to sell the land 
and was willing to humor the purchasers in five of 
the six articles, preserving its own rights in the 
fourth one. The New Englanders wanted such rights 
guaranteed as they had under their state constitutions. 
They wanted to live peaceably with the Indians and 



^ The text of the Ordinance for the government of the territory 
lying north and west of the Ohio river may be found in the Old 
South Leaflets (Boston), American History Leaflets (Lovell & Co.), 
Poore's Constitutions and Charters, Hinsdale's Old Northwest, and 
Preston's Documents. Its authorship is in dispute, although com- 
monly ascribed to Nathan Dane, a delegate in Congress from Mas- 
sachusetts. Its main provisions may be found in the constitution 
previously adopted by that state. 

2 The Ordinance was interpreted to permit slaves already in the 
Territory to be held as such. Slavery died out very slowly north 
of the Ohio. 



112 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



not to be obliged to compete with slave labor. Slavery 
still existed in some of their own states and they 
knew how free labor suffered from it. 

After the passage of the Ordinance a bargain was 
struck between Congress and Manasseh Cutler for two 

million acres 
l| of land. It was 
to lie north of 
the Ohio river, 
beginning o n 
the west line 
of the seven 
ranges, and to 
extend to the 
eighteenth 
range and far 
enough back 
from the river 
to make up the 
full amount. 
Five hundred 
thousand dol- 
lars was paid 
down. In default of some later payments, this " Ohio 
Company" purchase was reduced to a little over a 
million acres. The Scioto company formed to spec- 
ulate under the Ohio company grant will be described 
later. 

Much farther west, John Cleves Symmes, Chief 
Justice of New Jersey, attempted to duplicate the 
Ohio company in a large speculation for himself and 
a few others. He negotiated with Congress for one 




^^'- 



;JJ OKFILK, MARIKTTA 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 113 

million acres on the north side of the Ohio between 
the Great and Little Miami rivers. Congress was 
obliged to take back about two-thirds of this land in 




FIRST PARTITIOXS OF PUBLIC LANDS 



the vicissitudes which followed the ' ' Symmes pur- 
chase." 

Virginia had early set aside the land in Kentucky 
upon the Cumberland and between the Green and the 
Tennessee rivers for the redemption of her bounty 
certificates, but, lest it might prove insufhcient, she 



114 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

reserved the district north of the Ohio between the 
Scioto and the Little Miami rivers when she ceded 
her cLaims to the national government. This reserva- 
tion of over six thousand square miles was therefore 
called the " Virginia Military District." 

The United States had also bounty certificates to 
redeem, for which four thousand acres were set aside. 
These " Military Bounty Lands" lay west of the seven 
ranges and some distance north of the Ohio company 
lands. 

Connecticut had no bounty claims to redeem, but 
she wished to foster religion and education in her 
state ; she, therefore, at the time of cession, reserved 
a tract lying between the forty-first parallel and the 
northern boundary line of the United States for her 
schools and churches. It was to extend one hundred 
and twenty miles west from the Pennsylvania line. 
In 1792 half a million acres, comprising the entire 
western end of the reservation, was, by act of the 
Connecticut legislature, given to the inhabitants of 
New London and other towns of that state whose 
property had been destroyed in the raids made by the 
British during the war. In time this portion became 
known as "The Fire Sufferers' Lands" and simply 
"The Fire Lands. ' ' The entire reservation was known 
popularly as "The Connecticut Western Reserve," 
and shortened to " The Western Reserve." 

No other companies or speculators appeared, no 
other reservations had been made,* and Congress was 

^ In addition to the larger tracts described here, Congress in 1801 
gave a strip of land between the Muskingum and the Scioto in the 
central part of what is now Ohio to fifty-seven refugees who, with 
their families, had laeen driven from Canada because of their Ameri- 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 115 



at liberty to throw the remaining lands on the market 
as soon as they could be surveyed. To them the 
general name of "Congress Lands" was given. 
They were divided in the surveys into townships of 
six miles square, 



as had been done 
in the Ohio Com- 
pany lands, the 
Symmes pur- 
chase, and the 
seven ranges. In 
the Military 
Bounty lands the 
townships were 
made five miles 
square. This 
was also the size 
e s t a b 1 ished in 
the Connecticut 
reserve by the 
men who eventu- 
ally bought the 
tract from that 
state. 

The territory 
south of the river 



K 




FORT STECBKX, 1788 



can sympathy in the Revolutionary war. A small tract was given 
to one Dohrman, a Portuguese, who had aided the Americans in the 
war, and another grant to the Moravian Christian Indians after the 
massacre at Gnadenhutten. George Rogers Clark and his men 
were allowed one hundred and fifty thousand acres, located on the 
Ohio near the Falls in what is now Clark county, Indiana. At a 
later time the French settlers at the various villages in Indiana and 
Illinois were granted reservations of land. 



116 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

had been settled by individual effort and at great per- 
sonal risk. That lying to the north had the protection 
of the United States. Fort Steuben was located on the 
upper Ohio, Fort Harmar at the mouth of the Muskin- 
gum, and Fort Washington between the mouths of the 
two Miamis. During the Indian war, which followed 
the opening of the Territory, many other forts were 
constructed. In order to give access to the interior of 
its lands. Congress authorized Ebenezer Zane to cut a 
road from Wheeling ^ in a southwesterly direction to 
the Ohio river at Limestone (now Maysville), Ken- 
tucky. He made a " trace" by cutting out the under- 
growth and blazing the trees sufficiently to allow a 
wagon to pass through. He had to arrange for fer- 
ries at the crossing of the Muskingum, the Hockhock- 
ing, and the Scioto. At these points he very wisely 
located the three sections of land which he received 
for his labors. One became Zanesville, another Lan- 
caster, and the third was opposite Chillicothe. 

The land comprised in this first portion of the pub- 
lic lands now com^DOses the states of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and that part of Min- 
nesota lying east of the Mississippi. In contains 265,- 
878 square miles, a territory larger than that occupied 
by any European state save Russia. If it could have 
been sold at what was then a fair rate, it would have 
yielded to the central government a princely sum. 
Congress soon raised the minimum rate to two dollars 
an acre, but even at this low rate many could not pay 

^ Wheeling was probably the first town settled on the Ohio. Zane 
was the founder. During a siege by the Indians in 1777. his sister, 
Elizabeth, carried the powder from her brother's house to the fort, 
as so frequently described. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS 117 

for their purchases ; numerous relief measures were 
passed for them.^ The land lying along streams 
was often taken first and the interior left on the 
market. Speculators and swindlers flocked into the 
land offices when they were opened. Large blocks of 
land fell into the hands of a few men and, for a time, 
a system of foreign landlordism threatened. But with 
all the abuses connected with the disposal of the pub- 
lic lands, it was fulfilling its best purpose in being 
parcelled out among the people for the making of 
their homes. Indeed, the people themselves elimi- 
nated many of the evils and dangers by taking posses- 
sion of the land, establishing homes and assuming 
the powers of self-government as Congress had given 
it to them. 

^The land certificates which tlie government accepted for the 
public lands had gone down as low as twenty-three cents on the 
dollar. Hence, although the price for the Ohio Company was 
seventy cents per acre and the Symmes purchase sixtj^-six cents 
the net average was not much above ten cents per acre. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

The Ordinance of 1787 avMcIi Congress had devised 
for the government of the Northwest Territory was 
framed largely from past experience when the states 
had been English colonies. It was more liberal than 
some of the colonies had possessed and less liberal 
than others had enjoyed. Yet its wisdom and just- 
ness is shown by the fact that the general plan has 
been adhered to in all later territorial government by 
the United States where the i3eo23le seemed i:)repared 
for it. 

According to its provisions, the United States 
retained the right to appoint a governor, secretary, 
and three judges for the territory. The governor, in 
turn, was empowered to appoint inferior officers such 
as magistrates, and the lesser military officers. The 
governor and judges had the power of drawing up a 
code of laws. The central government retained the 
right of taxation. The second step was to give the 
people the beginnings of self-government when their 
population had reached a sufficient number to war- 
rant it. In the Northwest Territory, the presence 
of five thousand free male inhabitants being certified 
to the governor, one branch of a General Assembly 
or Legislature was to be chosen by those entitled to 
vote. The second branch of the Legislature was to 
consist of a council of five members chosen by Con- 
ns 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 119 

gress from ten men nominated by the other branch. 
The people were allowed even a limited participation 
in the national government. They could choose 
through their Legislature a delegate to Congress with 
a right of debating but not of voting. 

This territorial government was to be replaced by 
admission to statehood "on an equal footing with the 
original States in all respects whatever" whenever 
the poi^ulation reached sixty thousand free inhabit- 
ants, or at an earlier period "so far as it can be 
consistent witli the general interest of the Confeder- 
acy." Such has been generally the embryonic civil 
government of a territory. It is a compromise between 
home rule and absolute dependency. Quite naturally 
the first authority in an outlying territory has- been 
military. But the military regime has been replaced 
by this civil form as soon as it was safe to do so. 

The Ordinance was passed in July, 1787, and in the 
following October Congress appointed General Arthur 
St. Clair, of Pennsylvania, governor ; ^ Winthrop 
Sargent, of Massachusetts, secretary ; and Samuel 
Holden Parsons, of Connecticut, and James M. 
Varnum, of Rhode Island, judges. John Cleves 
Symmes was appointed the third judge. These 
men made preparations to proceed to the territory 
the following spring as soon as the streams were free 
of ice and the roads passable. 

^ St. Clair was a native of Scotland who had served with the British 
army in the French-Indian wars, and on the patriot side in the 
Revolutionary war. He had made a home in Pennsylvania beyond 
the mountains and was to some extent familiar with frontier life. 
His military experience no doubt contributed to his selection as 
Governor, since the organization of the Territory was to be effected 
under military protection. 



120 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

But the impatient Ohio Associates in Massachusetts 
could not await the beginnings of government in 
their new home. Two hours before daybreak on the 
second of December, 1787, several young men sat down 
to breakfast with the Rev. Manasseh Cutler at 
Ipswich, Massachusetts. Some of them were his 
parishioners and among them was his son. At dawn 
they paraded in front of the house, listened to an 
address from the preacher, fired a volley from their 
guns and marched away for the Ohio, to prepare the 
way for the Ohio Company colony. At Danvers they 
found twenty workmen and a strong baggage wagon 
awaiting them. On the black cover of the wagon Dr. 
Cutler had i^ainted in large white letters : 

FOR THE OHIO AT THE MUSKINGUM. 

The expedition crossed the Hudson, and went down 
through Pennsylvania until it reached the old 
Braddock road and in midwinter pushed on to the 
Youghiogheny. It could go no further since the 
river was frozen. No saw mills were running and 
boat timber was entirely wanting. While they tar- 
ried, smallpox broke out among them. In February, 
General Rufus Putnam, cousin to Israel Putnam, 
with the vanguard of the colony proper overtook 
them. No preparations had yet been made at the 
mouth of the Muskingum, but, there being no women 
in the party, all decided to go forward together as 
soon as boats could be built. In April they embarked 
on a union galley of forty-five tons burden, a ferr}^- 
boat of three tons, and three log canoes. In one 
week, after twice landing to secure game for food, 
they saw in a dense fog the outlines of Fort Harmar, 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 121 

and knew that across the Muskingum lay the site of 
their future homes. 

They soon cleared the land, surveyed part of it for 
town lots, and on another portion planted about one 
hundred acres of corn. By midsummer, a few huts 
and one blockhouse had been erected on the town 
site. A fortification was built of hewn timber, 




located about two hundred yards from the river 
with a glacis in front. To this stronghold was 
given the classic name, the Campus Martins. At 
a meeting of the directors the settlement was 
named Marietta. The plan of the town had been 
determined before leaving Massachusetts and it was 
made to conform to the "fortifications" or ancient 



122 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

works wliicli were found at the mouth of tlie Musk- 
ingum. The streets and public squares Avere on a 
large scale, and to them Greek and Latin names 
were given in accord with the classic spirit of the 
age.^ A temporary place of assembling was con- 
structed of felled trees and branches and called ' ' the 
bower." 

Indian alarms were common. The men by rota- 
tion formed an armed guard. However, they cele- 
brated the Fourth of July by a cessation of labor, a 
dinner, and orations, as if they had been back in 
peaceful Massachusetts with their friends. Two 
weeks later the civil government made its formal 
ap23earance at the bower in the persons of Governor 
St. Clair, his secretary and two of the judges. The 
governor was cordially received by the citizens, who 
listened to his proclamations and his address. He 
began at once to institute local government by erect- 
ing the land about Marietta into the "county" of 
Washington^ for administrative purposes. In Sep- 

^ The names of Muskingum and Adelphia were first suggested for 
the settlement, but remembrance of tlie gratitude to France, as well 
as sympathy for the situation of the unfortunate queen among the 
hostile French, suggested the name Marie Antoinette. It was 
shortened into Marietta. From Campus Martins ran the Via Sacra 
and the Via Romana. On higher ground was the Quadranou and 
below it flowed the Tiber. In later times the Campus Martins has 
become the Public Square and the Tiber is Goose Creek. The 
ancient earthworks of the "Mound Builders"' have almost disap- 
peared in the grading of the streets and lawns. 

2 The county was created for the purpose of administering local 
government. Certain minor details of administration were given 
over to the townships, although they were created originally as 
survey units. The township was derived from New England and 
the county from the southern states. Thus in the middle states the 
two systems are united. It has been the policy to create new 
counties by dividing the old ones as population might from time to 
time warrant. 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 123 

tember the governor and the judges were rowed from 
their official residence at Fort Harmar across to the 
"point" at Marietta, whence a formal i)ro.cession 
escorted them to the ToAvn Hall in the Campus 
Martins. There the first session of court was opened 
with prayer. It was said that the first laws passed 
were copied and nailed upon a tree for public 
reading. 

The New England religious and educational spirit 
was constantly manifest. The governor appointed a 
day of Thanksgiving during the first j^ear. No cler- 
gyman was present and General Parsons, the son of 
a Massachusetts clergyman, preached from Psalm 
ciii. 2. A teacher was sent out by the Company dur- 
ing the summer and a preacher, a graduate of Dart- 
mouth college, the following spring. The latter 
received five dollars per week and his board among 
his parishioners. The first sermon in the settlement 
was preached in the bower in July by the Rev. Mr. 
Breck who was making a tour of the Ohio. He chose 
for a text Exodus ix. 5 and 6. A tree was felled in 
the Campus Martins and an official examination was 
made of the rings to determine its age. Official sur- 
veys and descriptions of the ancient earthworks or 
"mounds" were made. A ceremonious dinner was 
given by the directors to the governor and the officers 
at Fort Harmar. 

In August, eleven other pioneers arrived, bringing 
their families with them. The row galley was sent up 
to Wells ville, Virginia, to bring them down. With 
them came Dr. Cutler to visit the settlement. The 
women brought a new life to the backwoods. In 



124 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

December a ball was given, at which "fifteen ladies 
were present as well accomplished in the manners of 
polite circles as any I have seen in the old states." 
No doubt the colonists were too busy to think of their 
isolated situation. But they were frequently cheered 
by the sight of fellow emigrants who stopped at Mari- 
etta and the Fort on their way to Kentucky. 

During the first summer they were visited by a New 




CINCIXNATI IN 1819 



Jersey colony under Judge Symmes bound for his 
purchase farther down the river. He had started 
from New Jersey with fourteen four-horse wagons 
and sixty persons, going by way of Bradford, 
Pennsylvania, and the Braddock road to Pittsburg. 
Embarking in flatboats, the party floated down the 
Ohio to Limestone, where the women and children 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 125 

remained whilst twenty-six of the men went down 
below the mouth of the Little Miami to lay out the 
town of Columbia, now part of Cincinnati. A month 
later another party descended from Limestone and 
founded Losantiville, now Cincinnati/ opposite the 
mouth of the Licking river. The following summer 
Fort Washington was built to protect these settle- 
ments. Symmes established his own family at the 
mouth of the Great Miami, where the Ohio river 
reaches its northernmost point in its upward sweep. 
This was known as the "north bend" of the river 
and the Symmes settlement ultimately adopted that 
name after having been called Miami City and 
Symmes City. The locating of Fort Washington^ 
farther up the river killed the chances of Symmes City 
and made Cincinnati. It was one of many grievances 
held by Symmes against the government in connec- 
tion with his unfortunate purchase. 

Colonel Nathaniel Massie, a Virginian, who had 
acquired a number of state bounty certificates, entered 
the Virginia Military district in 1790 and founded a 
town on the Ohio river a few miles above Limestone, 
which he called Manchester. Further settlements in 
the district were delayed by the Indian war in the 

^ At the close of the Revohitionary war the officers formed an 
association known as the Order of the Cincinnati, since they were 
now to return to civil life. Many of the Ohio settlers were mem- 
bers of that order. Hence the suggestion of tlmt name for a settle- 
ment, said to have come from Governor St. Clair, found a ready 
hearing. 

2 Anna, the daughter of Sjanmes, formed an atta(^hment for a 
young captain in charge of Fort Washington. Tlie father opposed 
the match, but taking advantage of his absence the j'oung people 
were married. The captain was William Henry Harrison, after- 
ward President of the United States. 



126 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Northwest Territory, which was ended by the Green- 
ville treaty in 1795. The following year Massie laid 
out a town on the Scioto and gave to it the old Indian 
name of Chillicothe. This Military district was set- 
tled almost entirely by Virginians and Kentuckians, 
large tracts of the land having passed through the 
hands of speculators who bought up the certificates 
from the soldiers. The surveys were made according 
to the systems of individual surveyors and the result- 
ing litigation has become a heritage for lawyers. 
Early travelers claimed that they could mark a dif- 
ference between the settlers of this district and the 
New Englanders on the east and the New Jerseyans 
on the west. But all such comparisons were no doubt 
colored by the anti-slavery feeling. 

The New Englanders at Marietta formed simply an 
island in southern Ohio. They did not follow the 

natural due 
west line of 
migration. 
The people 
have flowed 
gen e rally 
across the 
continent like 
some viscous 
subs tance, 

THE CAMPUS MARTIUS, MAKIETTA, OHIO C U C C K e CI Dy 

m o u n t a i n s 




^ It is interesting to trace the duplication of names of Virginia 
towns in this district. Manchester, Williamsburg, Winchester, Fin- 
castle, and others recalled to the settlers the homes they had left 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 127 

and swamps, pouring through openings and along 
waterways, and always seeking the lowest level and 
easiest path. If the continent had presented neither 
obstacle nor advantage, the migration would have 
been due west on evenly advancing lines from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. Two exceptions to this rule 
have already been described; viz., the Carolinians, 
who at first went north of their natural path into 
Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Marietta New 
Englanders, who went south of theirs. In each case 
the deviation was due to finding an easier way. 

Lake Ontario and Lake Erie formed the natural 
route between Massachusetts and the Ohio country. 
A line drawn from Boston to Lake Ontario would 
pass along the Mohawk river. But beyond the head 
of that river lay the lake region of central New York. 
Many of these lakes stretched north and south across 
the path, and the country about them, now drained 
and exceedingly fertile, was then a mass of tangled 
briars into which even the Indians rarely ventured. 
The British soldiers maintained communication by 
water between the different forts along the border. 
Their presence and the resulting lack of allegiance of 
the Indians to the United States also had inclined the 
New Englanders to take a more southerly route to the 
west.^ 

Under such conditions, Connecticut found it impos- 

behind. According to the Virginia custom the word "Court House" 
was at first appended to the covinty seats, but has now been dropped 
by all save Washington Court House. 

^ These forts were retained by the British until evacuated under 
the Jay treaty agreement twelve years after the close of the war. 
La Rochefoucauld in his " Travels" describes them as Michillimak- 
kinak (Mackinac), Detroit, Miami, Niagara, and Oswego. 



128 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

sible to attract individual buyers to the large strip of 
land which she had reserved in the northeast corner 
of the territory. Finally, patterning after Congress, 
she sold all of it except the Fire Lands to a number 
of speculators styling themselves the "Connecticut 
Land Company," Their agent, General Moses 
Cleaveland, led a body of surveyors into the tract by 
way of Lake Ontario. He quieted the Indian claims 
to the eastern portion of the reserve by giving them 
£500, two head of cattle and one hundred gallons of 
whisky. Landing at the mouth of the Conneaut 
river, Cleaveland and his party of fifty, including two 
women, celebrated Independence Day, 1796, by a feast 
of pork and beans with bread. A little later surveys 
were begun at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, 
where a village sprang up and soon received the 
name of the agent of the company.^ One year later 
the " Girdled Road " was constructed from the Penn- 
sylvania line to Cleaveland.^ By 1800 there were 
1,302 residents within the boundaries of the reserve 
and twenty-five settlements were recognized by name. 
The Western Reserve was settled almost exclusively 
by New England people. The population of Ohio 
represents that element in the northern portion only 
and in a few scattered cases like Marietta and Gran- 
ville. Fully two-thirds of the state was settled by 

1 It is said that Cleaveland was shortened to Cleveland by one of 
the early editors because he could not get so many letters into the 
heading of his newspaper. 

- The undergrowth was cleared a width of twenty-five feet and 
the large trees "girdled"' a width of thirty -three feet. When the 
bark was removed from the trees they soon died and so let in tlie 
sunshine on the road. In time they were removed. Such was the 
common method of road making. 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 129 

Peniisylvanians and Virginians. Some writers are 
inclined to attribute the unusual i3rominence of the 
state in jDublic affairs to this commingling of diverse 
elements. Others say that owing to the topography 
of the land, the western migration from fully one- 
half of the older states had to pass through Ohio. It 
thus secured an early predominance. 

It was not to be expected that the sale of these 
western lands could be inaugurated without the 
spirit of speculation arising and at times proving dis- 
astrous. Cutler and Sargent, in their negotiations 
with Congress for the Ohio Company, secured as a 
private speculation four million acres of land lying 
west and north of the Ohio Company tract. Some 
revolutionary ofHcers were associated in the enter- 
prise and financial backing was found in New York 
city. Joel Barlow, the Revolutionary poet, was sent 
to France and organized the Society of the Scioto, 
to which he sold three million acres of the specula- 
tion lands. He agreed to have huts erected on the 
land opposite the mouth of the Great Kanawha to 
accommodate at least one hundred iDersons. 

In the spring of 1790, forty laborers came on from 
New England, cleared a small space, and erected a 
square of log huts with a blockhouse at each corner. 
Meanwhile six hundred French emigrants had 
reached Alexandria, Virginia, but missed the agent 
sent to meet them. Alarmed by the threatened 
uprising of the Indians north of the Ohio, they could 
with difficulty be persuaded to venture over tlie 
mountains. When at last they reached their settle- 
ment, which they named Gallipolis, they planted 



1 30 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



their little gardens according to the directions in 
their books on agriculture and started their vine- 
yards ; but they dared not venture beyond the pro- 
tection of their guns. A second colony imder Count 
de Barth and Marquis Marnesia reached Marietta but 
feared to go down to their proposed settlement at the 

mouth of the 
Scioto. The par- 
ty was scattered, 
some m. embers 
going on to the 
old French towns 
in Illinois. 

Letters sup- 
posed to have 
been written by 
the French set- 
tlers on the Ohio, 
describing their 
enchanting s u r - 
roundings, and 
prosperous condi- 
tion, were sent 
back and printed 
in France. Ad- 
vertising pam- 
phlets were issued 
to the same effect. 
A few more French were persuaded to come over, but 
they were as unfitted as their fellows for this frontier 
life. They embraced carvers, gilders, coat and peruke 
makers, musicians, frisseurs, and brass w^orkers, but 




SCIOTO COMl»AXY FRENCH PAiMPHLKT 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 131 

few mechanics and laborers. It was a bit of Paris 
set down in the wilderness. Notwithstanding their 
privations they assembled twice each week in the 
ball-room. 

Ignorant of backwoods ways, some of tlie men were 
killed in felling trees ; others were poisoned by eat- 
ing unknown fruits ; still others were tomahawked 
by the savages. During the winter, many families 
lived on beans boiled in water, without meat or 
bread. In addition to all these hardships, the title of 
the speculating company to the land was found 
defective. However, Congress came to the relief of 
the foreigners and gave them a " French grant" near 
the mouth of the Scioto. Throughout southern Ohio 
may be found families of Juggernaut, Du Bois, 
Drouillard, Richards, Bertholet, Duduit, and others, 
descended from these French settlers.^ 

In thus preparing the eastern portion of the terri- 
tory north of the Ohio river for sale and settlement, 
Congress was not unmindful of the fact that there 
was no inconsiderable number of French people 
further west whom the United States had acquired 
with the soil in the peace of 1783. Provision was 
made in the Ordinance for acknowledging the just 
claims of these habitants to their property. But it 
was known that many adventurers and traders had 
gone into the region and " squatted" upon desirable 
tracts without title deeds. 

^ The story of the unfortunate French who were allured to the 
banks of the Ohio and to a life for which they were not fitted may 
be found in Howe's "Historical Collections," the Ohio Archaeolog- 
ical and Historical Society's publications, and such early writers as 
Breckenridge and others. The advertising pamphlet shown here- 
with is in the collection of J. H. James, Esq., of Urbana, Ohio. 



132 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

One of these French settlements, Cahokia, was said 
to have been founded as a mission and trading post 
by some of La Salle's party in 1683. Its situation 
exposed it to overflow in the spring floods of the Mis- 
sissippi river, but it was not threatened with annihi- 
lation by the washing away of the banks as was 
another French village, Kaskaskia. Some claimed 
that Kaskaskia was older even than Cahokia and had 
been founded by Marquette in 1673. It consisted of 
some seventy cabins clustered about the church of the 
Mission of the Immaculate Conception. From Kas- 
kaskia the great trail led to Detroit.^ 

In these villages each adult had been given ' ' three 
hundred feet, more or less," measured with strips of 
bark and had erected thereon a plain square dwell- 
ing. The farm land lay without the village and was 
held in common. There were no deeds or legal 
papers and few disputes. 

French and Indians dwelt together in Acadian 
simplicity. The white people adopted the moccasins, 
and the redskins fashioned their blankets into 
capotes. Sunday morning and on holy days all 
went to church ; in the evening all came together in 
the largest room in the village and danced under the 
approving eye of the priest. Into this simple life 
George Rogers Clark had broken and had left behind 
him the county of Illinois, a part of Virginia. At 
such a distance, justice was with difficulty adminis- 
tered and the incoming English-speaking people 
embraced many adventurers who insolently took pos- 
session of the lands of tlie French. 

' See sketch map, page 222 



THE PEOPLING OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 133 

In order to warn these invaders to secure titles or 
evacuate the land as well as to collect information 
about the French residents and to impress the 
Indians, General Harmar had been sent to the Illinois 
country with a detachment of troops. He made no 
reckoning of the French women and children in the 
different villages, but found at Vincennes (now 
Indiana) five hundred and twenty men ; at Kaskaskia 
(now Illinois), one hundred and ninety-one men ; at 
Cahokia (now Illinois), two hundred and thirty-nine 
men. Many other French families were scattered 
through the country. He served notice of the 
intentions of Congress on the Americans he found 
in the old French stockades of La Belle Fon- 
taine and Grand Ruisseau, and about thirty more 
whom he found scattered at different points. These 
made immediate preparations to send petitions to 
Congress. 

Of the French he reported : * * All these people are 
entirely unacquainted with what Americans call 
liberty. Trial by jury, etc., they are strangers to." 
He therefore suggested the expediency of adopting a 
military rule for them.^ But to maintain military 
rule in the Territory in time of peace was contrary to 
the spirit of the Ordinance, and Congress preferred to 
let St. Clair continue to spread civil rule and await the 
influx of liberty-loving people from the eastern states 



1 Many of Harmar' s letters are printed in the St. Clair Papers. 
See these two volumes also for St. Clair's eventful administration 
as governor as well as the sad circumstances of his later life. 
Hutchins, in Imlaj^'s ''America," estimates about four thousand 
whites in what is now Indiana and Illinois. They were " mostly 
French. ' ' 



134 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



who Avoulcl imbue these French subjects with higher 
ideals.^ 

The stormy life of St. Clair as governor of the 
Northwest Territory, especially in connection with 
the admission of Ohio, gives a fresh realization of the 
diversified elements which at first rushed into the 
region. Sectional differences, race prejudices, land- 
lordism versus individual holdings — all these diffi- 
culties had to be overcome in the evolution of a 

harmonious state. As 
usual, union came not 
from choice but from 
necessity. Law and 
order were gradually 
evolved along the fron- 
tier and the future of 
the Territory seemed 
assured. Many had 
feared, like Washing- 
ton, that it might become the haunt of banditti or 
outlaws who would prey on the older portion, or that 
the fear of the savages would limit population to the 
safer east. But intelligent, educated men, who planted 
their homes in the wilderness, led by solid judgment 
and appreciating all tlie hazards, were likely to pro- 
tect and abide by those homes. 




FIRST OHIO CAPITOL. CHILLICOTHE 



^ No fear of a permanent French predominance in the Territory- 
arose in the mind of any one wlio studied the record of the past. 
When Marietta was founded, there had been a French colony on the 
Illinois for one liundred and six j^ears, and one in the Indiana 
country for thirty-six years. Yet both remained simply outposts. 



CHAPTER XII 

JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 

So rapidly was the Northwest Territory i^eopled 
under the protection of the United States, that, not- 
withstanding tlie Indian war,^ one portion had passed 
through the various stages necessary to statehood in 
the short space of sixteen years. The evohition of 
this state, Ohio, may be taken as typical of those 
following : 

1787. The land lying north of the Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi was erected into the Northwest 
Territory. 

1798. Members of a Territorial Assembly (Legis- 
lature) were chosen by the people (5,000 inhabitants). 

1799. A Territorial Assembly met at Cincinnati. 

1800. The Northwest Territory was divided into 
Ohio territory and Indiana territory, with capitals at 
Chillicothe and Vincennes. 

1802. The inhabitants of Ohio territory petitioned 
Congress for statehood. Congress j^assed an "ena- 
bling ' ' act authorizing the people to meet and draw 
up a state constitution. The constitutional conven- 



^The Indians north of the Ohio repudiated the treaty of Fort 
Stanwix and harassed the settlers. During the ensuing intermit- 
tent warfare, Gen. St. Clair was defeated by them, but a decisive 
victory was won by Gen. Wayne on the Maumee. Wayne then 
made a treaty with the Indians which secured peace to the north- 
west until the War of 1812. 

135 



136 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

tion met at Chillicothe. (Census showed only 45,000 
inhabitants.) ^ 

1803. Congress found nothing in the state consti- 
tution ]*epugnant to the constitution and laws of the 
United States, and therefore extended the laws of the 
United States over the territory of Ohio. (Equivalent 
to creating a state. In later cases, states have been 
regularly ' ' admitted. ' ') 

The people who thus journeyed into a new land and 
erected a state followed the paths adopted by the first 
comers. The Carolinians crossed the mountains and 
came up through Tennessee and Kentucky. The 
emigrants from the states farther north came through 
Pennsylvania and down the Ohio. Pittsburg con- 
tinued to be the main gateway to the west. One 
might find the banks of the river at that city occupied 
by hundreds of families with their household goods 
awaiting the comi3letion of the craft which was to 
bear them down the Ohio, or daily j^raying for rain 
which would enable them to take out the completed 
boat on the ensuing rise of the river. ^ 



^ The Ordinance had set sixty thousand free inhabitants as the 
basis of statehood, but the action could be taken at an earlier 
period if "consistent with the general interest of the confederacy." 
The overthrow of the Federalist party and the election of Jefferson 
in 1800 was the first democratic upheaval and the *' general inter- 
est" immediately demanded extension of statehood privileges. 
Federalist New England opposed the admission of Ohio, and the 
central and southern states supported it. Parties had begun to 
influence measures. 

2 Some travelers declared that so much as three million dollars' 
worth of goods was at times piled up at Pittsburg awaiting high 
water. Since boats could reach Wheeling at a much lower stage of 
water than Pittsburg, that settlement aspired to be a rival of the 
larger Pittsburg. In a speech in Congress, Henry Clay told of a 
vessel bearing clearanc^e papers from Pittsburg which was seized at 
Leghorn, Italy, after journeying thither. Such a port as "Pitts- 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 



137 



These seekers for fortune in a new land wei-e of 
varying degrees of prosperity. The thrifty New 
Englander was present with his compactly arranged 
household effects, his clean and neatly clad family, 
and a stern austerity showing in every action. Near 
at hand was to him an unusual sight. From the 
uplands of Pennsylvania or Virginia had come a 




PITTSBrRft IN 1810 



family of Irish who were careless of manners, the 
children half clad, and the most prominent and dis- 
turbing bit of furniture a jug of home-distilled whisky. 
There was also the tall, gaunt "poor Avhite " of Vir- 
ginia or the Carolinas, with good blood in his veins, 
yet the victim of generations of comjDetition with 
slave labor. He had now ventured with his numerous 



burg" had never been heard of and could not be found on the maps, 
and the papers were therefore supposed to be fraudulent. 



138 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

household on the ui3per route to a new home in the 
"guv'ment" lands. He commonly had long black 
hair, swore loudly, chewed tobacco, and smoked, 
whilst his shrill-voiced helpmeet confined herself to 
her pipe. Mingling with the crowd was the Yankee 
peddler, with his nasal voice, and his eye keen for the 
chance of a gain. His tinware, Dutch ovens, and 
wooden clocks were urged upon the emigrants as 
absolute necessities in the land to which they were 
bound. ^ The "speculator," marked by his shrewd 
eye and prosperous dress, grew eloquent in his descrip- 
tions of the richness of the lands he offered for sale at 
a mere song. The land agent, going out to his new 
official position, exhibited his commission bearing the 
signature of the President and tlie great seal of the 
United States. Soon he would be busy "doing a 
land office business." There was no limit of age to 
these birds of passage. Travelers have described over- 
taking old couples of sixty years bound into the 
west solely on the excuse — " Well, our children were 
all grown up and married and we had no ties, and so 
just packed up and followed the crowd." 

The more intelligent travelers examined the remains 
of old Fort Pitt, and agreed w^ith the judgment of 
Washington that the low land forming the point at 
the junction of the rivers had been a poor location for 
a fort. The bomb-proof magazine built by the British 
government at a cost of £60,000 stood until 1820. 
The old blockhouse erected by the early settlers just 



^The Yankee trader was said to sell "pit coal indigo, and wooden 
nutmegs. " He was also suspected of converting whisky into gin by 
adding pine tops to it. 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 139 

above the fort is still preserved. In 1760 there had 
been some two hundred people about Fort Pitt, and 
five years later the town was laid out under the direc- 
tion of an attorney of the Penn heirs. Soon the fine 
king's gardens and large orchards which furnished 
vegetables and fruit 
for the officers in 
the fort disappeared 
in town lots. The 
first row of houses 
had been built on 
the Allegheny river 
bank, but the spring 
freshets wore away 
the bank and the 
houses disappeared. 
The presence of 
coal in western Pennsylvania had been known since 
1759. In 1784, under the extensive rights sold by the 
heirs of William Penn, the mining of coal was begun 
all about Pittsburg. Coal suggested manufactures, 
and before the year 1800 glass was made in that city. 
Boots, shoes, saddlery, paj^er, and iron soon followed. 
Travelers were disgusted with the smoke from these 
manufactories, and readily believed the story that a 
Pittsburger, on being taken into the country for the 
first time in winter, exclaimed, " What white snow ! " 
Indeed, migrants tarried in Pittsburg as short a time 
as possible, since it was firmly believed that the ex- 
cessive smoke of the air produced that enlargement 
of the thyroid gland so common then and known as 
the goitre. 






OLD BLOCKHOUSK, PITTSBTTRCJ 



140 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

The most common means of transportation on the 
Ohio was the "Kentucky flat bottom," "family 
l)oat " or "ark." On a shallow platform without 
keel, such a boat as is used even now for private 
ferries in many places, was built a rude cabin or 
house. The keel was from forty to one hundred feet 
long and about fifteen feet wide. From the roof pro- 
jected two great oars or " broad horns," with which 
the craft was kept in the channel. Inside the house 
the family lived. When the desired landing was 
reached, the boards of the house were used for floor- 
ing, roof, and doors of a log cabin. The "barge" 
was a huge vessel almost as large as an Atlantic 
schooner and rec[uired twenty-five hands to pole it up 
stream. It was too heavy, rec^uired too much water, 
and was not much used. 

Several families frequently united and built a 
"raft," sometimes seventy feet long, on which was 
carried not only a house but domestic animals with 
their provender. At the door of the cabin sat a 
woman knitting. From the top of the haystack the 
cock crowed. These "floating farmhouses" carried 
a pang of homesickness to the emigrant who had left 
behind him his family to await his home-making ; but 
at the same time they gave him an enthusiastic con- 
fidence in the future.^ 

Past the floating "flat bottom" and "i-aft" would 
go the swift "keel" boat propelled by six or eight 
oarsmen seated in the bow. It was the palatial 
packet of the river before the day of the steamboat. 



^ In some years more than one thousand boats were counted as 
they passed Marietta going down the river. 



4 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 



141 



A deck six feet high gave a promenade by day and a 
shelter by night. Inside, the passengers slept on 
mattresses thrown on the freight and ate from the 
tops of boxes. Fares were high unless one could work 
his passage at the oars, and few families could afford 
to travel in this way. In 1794 two keel-boats passed 
regularly between Pittsburg and Cincinnati, making 
the round trip in a month. They were provided with 
bullet- 
proof cov- 
er s and 
p o r t h oles 
and car- 
ried can- 
n o n a n d 
small arms. 
The oars- 
men could 
m a k e as 
high as one 
h u n d r e d 
miles down 




JOLLY FLATROAT MKN 



stream i n 

twenty-four hours, unless delayed by discharging 
freight ; up river the empty boat could with hard labor 
be "poled " only ten to twenty miles per day. 

These boatmen,^ were the terror of the river towns. 



' The boatmen had a vernacular peculiar to themselves and most 
interesting to travelers. The pole used in pushing the boat was 
called a "shoulder pole," because one end rested against the 
shoulder in pushing. The tow lines sometimes received the French 
name of cordelles. Frequently the boat was drawn along the shore 
by the men grasping successive overhead branches. This was called 



142 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

They had no residences and acknowledged no author- 
ity. They boasted that they were not of woman 
born, but were "half hoss and half alligator." Some- 
times for days they floated along, dancing on the 
decks or exchanging badinage with the girls along 
the shore, but at other times they worked in a storm 
or at the rapids amidst peril and hardship. On 
many a headland along the shores one could And the 
grave of a boatman who had succumbed to the 
vicissitudes of the life. Nevertheless their appar- 
ently easy labor enticed the sons of the farmers along 
the river away from their homes and added to the 
grudges borne against them. Sometimes they took 
upon tliemselves a crude reform spirit, as when they 
seized the whipping-post in a Kentucky town and 
threw it into the river. At night they beguiled the 
way Vv^ith songs, much to the disgust of the travelers 
or the inhahitants of a town where tliey might be 
tarrying. The sentimental side of their rough natures 
showed in their songs : 

It's oh ! as I was walking out, 

One morning in July, 
I met a maid, who ax'd my trade. 

Says I, I'll tell you presently, 
Miss, I'll tell you presently. 

And it's oh! she was so neat a maid. 
That her stockings and her shoes 

She toted in her lily white hands, 
For to keep them from the devv^s. 



"bushwhacking."' The accompanying illustration is from a wood- 
cut in the State Museum, Charleston, West Virginia. 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 143 

A favorite chorus of the boat songs ran as follows : 

Some row up, but we row down, 
All the way to Shawneetown. 

Pull away — pull awa5^^ 

Sha^yneetown lay on the Ohio just below the mouth 
of the Wabash, and was the place of debarkation for 
the Illinois country. Beyond it one met the Missis- 
sij^pi trade, and it was therefore the ultima thule of 
the Ohio boatmen as Natchez was for the Mississippi. 
The necessary stay of these boatmen in Shawneetown 
before starting on the return journey gaye the place 
an unwholesome reputation. It was said to contain 
all the plagues of Egypt. A few pioneers passed 
beyond Shawneetown to ascend the Cumberland or 
Tennessee riyers into Kentucky and Tennessee, but 
this was too circuitous a journey until the steamboat 
came into use. 

The boatmen as well as the families floating down 
the Ohio were obliged to depend upon their rifles for 
fresh meat on the way. Occasionally a flock of wild 
geese would be sighted walking about on a sandbar, 
but frequently such expectations of edible food upon 
near approach proyed to be pelicans or cranes. The 
shotgun was held in most profound contempt by 
these expert riflemen. An old adage ran, "Luck's 
like a shotgun, mighty uncertain." Flour could be 

^ The song of the boatmen had a romantic counter-sound in the 
horn which was blown almost continuousl}^ at night, especially in 
approaching a bend in the river. A writer in the Lexington, Ken- 
tucky, Review, recalls the olden times in a poem, one stanza of 
which runs : 

O boatman, Tvlnd that horn a^ain, 

For never did the Hstening air 

Upon its lambent bosom bear 
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain! 



144 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

obtained from the floating mills along the river. 
The miller chose a point where a current was pro- 
duced by a bend or shallow place in the river, and 
fastened a barge to the shore. Farther out he 
anchored a canoe and between the barge and canoe 
he j)laced a shaft sui3porting the Avater- wheel. A belt 
was run from the barge end of the shaft to the mill- 
stones, and the mill was ready for action. 

On the river the steering was done by the Pittsburg 
Navigator, in which the channels, shoals, and snags 




m'culloch's leap- 



were charted. As they floated along, the travelers 
passed the "big grave" near Grave Creek, where an 
"Indian mound," sixty-four feet high and fifty feet 
in diameter, marked presumably the resting-place of 
some mighty chief. Not far distant was the cliff on 
Wheeling Creek, over which Major McCulloch had 
* From an old lithograph in the Library of Congress, Washington. 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 145 

leaped his horse in escaping from the Indians. The 
" Long Reach" of seventeen miles was a marked con- 
trast to the usual tortuous route of the river. " Dead 
Man's Riffle" (ripple) with its rocks just below the sur- 
face of the water, was reached with some anxiety. 
At Marietta many stopped to see the shipyards from 
Avliich the square-rigged vessel had been launched 
and carried down to New Orleans by Commodore 
Whipple, of Revolutionary fame. At the mouth of 
the Kanawha salt was purchased which had been 
shipped down from the saltworks seventy miles 
above. ^ It was the last place where that commodity 
could be purchased until Shawneetown was reached, 
near which were located the government salines. 
Opposite the mouth of the Scioto was the dreaded 
"Indian lookout," where an attack from the savages 
was to be expected. Along the bluffs ran the path of 
the "spies" or scouts who i^atrolled the river from 
the Big Sandy to Limestone. Passing Cincinnati 
and Fort Washington the travelers came eventually 
to the more rapidly moving water which denoted 
the proximity of the Falls of the Ohio. Here all 
goods must be landed and carried around in the 
summer and early autumn, but during the high 
water season, boats not infrequently chose one of the 
three "chutes" and went over the rapids in safety. 
The descent was about twenty-two feet over a stretch 

^ Salt had been a grave question with the first settlers who left 
the coast, where it was made by evaporating sea water. The 
attempt to put a tariff on salt in the first Congress under the Con- 
stitution (1789) brought a vigorous protest from the trans- AUegha- 
nians of Pennsylvania and Virginia, who had to carry salt on 
horseback across the mountains. 



146 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

of two miles and the current usually thirteen miles an 
hour. Opposite the flourishing town of Louisville, 
at the Falls, was Clarksville, founded on a grant of 
land made to George Rogers Clark for his Revolution- 
ary services. 

The mouth of each side stream as marked in 
the Navigator was approached with interest, since 
here was usually a settlement. Settlers established 
homes along these lateral waters and came down to 
the mouth to trade. When the main stream was 
swollen by rain which had fallen about its head waters, 
the unusual volume of water ' ' backed up ' ' these 
side streams, much to the mystification of unskilled 
navigators. Flint tells of a boat which had floated 
in this manner some miles up a stream and its owners 
could Avith difficulty be persuaded that they were not 
on the way to New Orleans. He also illustrates the 
taciturnity of the boatmen in their inquiries and 
replies on one occasion: "Where are you from?'' 
"Redstone." "What's your lading?" "Millstones." 
"What's the captain's name?" "Whetstone." 
"Where are you bound?" "Limestone." 

Floating down the Ohio or rowing up the Tennes- 
see or the Cuml)erland involved hardships, but none 
comparable with those experienced in crossing the 
Alleghanies. In 1770, the heart of Washington was 
touched by the sight of "several families going over 
the mountains to live ; some without having any 
places provided. Tlie -snow from the Alleghany 
mountains was near knee deep."^ A sigh of relief 

^ In his Journal of a Tour to the Ohio. Printed in Sparks's 
'•Washington," II., 5"83. 



JOURNEYING TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 147 

usually escaped the weary ti\aveler Avhen Pittsburg 
was reached, although the carriage containing the 
Rey. Timothy Flint and his family was overturned 
as it was entering that city.' The undressed and 
often ungraded roads, the lack of bridges, the break- 
age of vehicles, the sparsely settled country, con- 
tributed to make the crossing an experience to be 
dreaded and not willingly repeated. Many declared 
the mountains "a barrier almost as impassable as 
the grave." Widespread and urgent was the demand 
for some amelioration of this hardshixD which so 
rudely sundered home ties.^ 

Private capital had not accumulated sufficiently for 
such an enterprise ; local feeling was too strong to 
hope for state cooperation ; the national treasury was 
the only resource left. Many petitions for aid were 
sent to Congress. By the act admitting the state of 
Ohio, five per cent of the land sales in that state was 
payable to the national treasury. From this fund, in 
1806, Congress ordered the survey of a higlnvay from 
the headwaters of some Atlantic stream to the Ohio 
river. The route eventually selected coincided largely 
with the old Braddock road so constantly used. From 

^ See his " Recollections of Ten Years Passed in the Valley of the 
Mississippi." He also wrote a "Geography and History of the 
Western States." 

- In a manuscript letter preserved by the Pennsylvania Historical. 
Society, W. Smith, writing of the departure of a Maryland family 
to live in Kentucky, says: "I regret much not being present at your 
family dinner, especially as I wished to have seen Polly Nicholas 
before her departure to the new world. Poor girl. I am sure it 
must greatly distress her and all her friends at the separation which 
may be called a farewell forever." T. Buchanan Read's "Wagoner 
of the Alleghanies" gives a picture of country mountain travel in 
Revolutionary days. Helen Hunt Jackson in her "Emigravit'' 
makes a delightful figurative use of this flight to a new land. 



148 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

its eastern terminus it received the name of the 
" Cumberland national road." It was destined to be 
not only of great benefit to travelers in journeying 
to the new country, but also an important union- 
making factor, as will be seen later. 




ir>EXCK OF OOVKRXOR ST. CLAIK, MARIETTA 



CHAPTER XIII 



PIONEER LIFE IN THE OHIO VALLEY 

Once beyond the mountains, tlie traveler found 
abundant x^roof that he was in a new country. Cur- 
rency was very scarce and was replaced by articles of 
general value, such as skins and jugs of whisky. 
Cow-bells were also 



Nov. 49, 1757. 



fHOMAS HOWLETT. 



Cajh given for 

OTTER, FOX, 6c MINK 
S K I N S, 

At JOHN HAGUE & Go's Store, 
at RockETT'J. 



AT T 



U.,,,:..^ 



such a necessity that 
they became an ac- 
ceptable tender. 
Small currency was 
scarce, and a silver 
dollar was often cut 
into half dollars or 
quarters with an axe 
or chisel. Unscrupulous persons sometimes converted 
a dollar into five quarters of "cut money," as it 
was called. 

Chickens were worth ten cents each, butter twelve 
and a half cents to twenty-five cents a pound, cheese 
sixteen cents, and salt six cents a pound. Peaches 
could be had for twenty-five cents a bushel. Apples 
were very scarce, since the trees required a longer 
time to mature. Beef sold at four cents a pound and 
deer meat at three. The entire carcass of a deer was 
worth only a dollar. Mutton was not eaten, since 
the wool crop would thereby be lessened. Wool sold 
for five cents a pound. Sheep had to be jDenned at 

149 



150 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

night to protect them from the wolves, although it 
was a common experience that they were rarely 
attacked by bears. The panther was the most 
dreaded wild animal.^ Horses were mostly of Sj)anisli 




A PIOXKER ADVKNTIIRE WITH PANTHERS 



breed, being brought up from the Floridas and vary- 
ing in price from sixty to eighty dollars. Corn was 
sold at fifty cents a bushel. A single log cabin could 
be built for one hundred and fifty dollars, and a 
double one for a hundred dollars more. Feather beds 
were a great luxury and readily brought six dollars 
each. A feather bed was a bride's dowry. 



^ Dennie's Portfolio describes a pioneer finding a panther caught 
in his trap and two others trj^ng to release the prisoner. Summon- 
ing his wife, "an intrepid Amazon,'' and bidding her act as a rest 
for his gun, he succeeding in killing the three animals. The cut 
reproduced herewith accompanies the description in the magazine 
in 1812. 



PIONEER LIFE IN THE OHIO VALLEY 151 

The family washing was done on the river bank, 
where driftwood and water was abundant. A 
"smoke-house" for curing meat and a crib for stor- 
ing corn were adjuncts to every cabin. Cellars were 
unknown and butter and meat were preserved by 
hanging them in the well. A rail pen was con- 
structed for housing pigs to be fattened, but the old 
hogs were allowed to feed in the woods. Bells were 
placed about their necks as well as on cows and 
horses when "turned out" to pasture. Such animals 
were notched in the ears and the earmarks of indi- 
vidual owners entered with the county clerk. A 
registered mark was sufficient to reclaim an animal 
within five miles of the owner's residence.^ 

Settlers living near the river could depend upon 
fishing to supplement their food. One kind of fish in 
the Ohio river was often of enormous proportions, 
and was called "catfish" because of the "whiskers" 
projecting from each side of its mouth. Others called 
it a "bull-head " from the disproportionate size of its 
head. 

"The chills" and the various forms of malarial 
fevers arising from the " damps" were treated by 
liberal doses of "bitters" manufactured from the 
prescription of an "Indian doctor." The bark of 
some tree soaked in whisky furnished the necessary 
ingredients. A serious illness, a malformation, or 
sometimes even a temporary ache, would call for the 
services of a " faith doctor," with charms and spells, 

1 This practice was borrowed from the old world. The use of the 
word " earmark" to indicate figuratively recognizable marks in an 
author's writings is as old as Shakespeare. 



152 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

whose value depended entirely upon the faith placed 
in him by the patient. A seventh son or a son who 
had never seen his father was supposed to possess this 
mysterious power. "Water witching," or finding 
the proper place to dig a well for drinking water, was 
sometimes i^racticed as an avocation. These witchers 
were also supposed to be able to "charm" a rifle and 
so render its aim useless. 

The small game did not differ generally from the 
species on the eastern side of the mountains, but the 
opossum was a marvel to many people from New 

England and to all 
^ -* * ~^ -^ • EurojDeans. it was 

the first marsupialian 
commonly found. Per- 
sons of an inquiring 
mind kept captive 
opossums to determine 
whether the young 
THK oposscM wPTP r p a 1 1 V pvnrlpfl 

From the Royal (London) Magazine. 176S NVtltJ lUcliiy fc!XUUeu 

from the mother's 
pouch where they were carried. The animal was 
pictured in the European magazines, but sadly out of 
proportion with surrounding objects. 

Many also marveled at the giant sycamore trees ^ 
along the banks of streams, often showing the green 
parasite, mistletoe, growing from their smooth white 
bark. The redbud and the magnolia added beauty to 

^ When he visited Marietta colony, Dr. Cutler saw a fallen syca- 
more tree into which he says six horsemen could have ridden 
abreast. A standing tree measured forty feet in circumference. 
It was said that a Missouri justice used the section of a hollow 
sycamore for an office. 




PIONEER LIFE IN THE OHIO VALLEY 



153 



tlie woods. The wild grapevines reached enormous 
proportions, festooning themselves from the branches 
of the trees. Tlie European migrants wondered at 
the humming-bird , 
which they some- 
times called the su- 
gar-bird, the fly-bird, 
or the murmur-bird. 
They had never seen 
wild oxen (buffalo) 
nor wild "torckies" 
(turkeys). They 
were amazed at the 
flocks of wild pigeons 
which darkened the 
air. They watched 
the slanting course 
of the flying squirrel. 
Tlie fireflies they 
likened to the 
dreaded mosquitoes 
hunting with lamps 
for their victims, and some, it was said, believed them 
to be fiery spirits which ventured from the lower 
world at nightfall. 

The rattlesnake was a terror to the newcomers, as 
it was to every person wlio crossed the Alleghanies. 
Travelers exhausted prose, and used poetry to describe 
where 

glistening lay, extended o'er the path 
With steadfast, piercing eye, and gathering wrath - 
A large grim rattlesnake, of monstrous size. 
Three times tliree feet his length enormous lies; 




A FORKST ADVKXTl'KE 



154 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

His pointed scales in regular rows engraved ; 
His 3^ellow sides with wreaths of dusky waved; 
Fix'd to the spot, with staring eyes, we stood! 
He, slowly moving, sought th' adjoining wood.^ 

The l)lack snake was feared even more, because it was 
thought to have the power of " charming" its victim. 
Many of the newcomers were compelled to acquire 
a taste for the food which Mother Nature supplied to 
them whilst their fields were being prepared for cul- 
tivation. All enjoyed the product of the sugar maple, 
although some were surprised at its scanty yield. 
Over in Europe it had been popularly supposed that 
the sugar could be shoveled or scraped from the 
branches of the maple trees. ^ Few found the pawpaw 
palatable. They likened it to the taste of the pine- 
ap23le. The " pomj)ion " (pumpkin), which they 
learned to plant between their rows of Indian corn, 
was not at first agreeable to the taste ; neither v»^as 
the wild persimmon. The buckeye was a keen disap- 
pointment, since its showy fruit was not edible.^ The 

^ These stanzas and the accompanying illustration are taken from 
Dennie's Portfolio, 1806. 

2 The project of making sugar from the maple in North America 
in quantities and at a cost to compete with the sugar made from 
the cane attracted the attention of various promoters. The Hol- 
land Land Company brought over a sugar refiner, and at one time 
purchased 132,000 acres of woodland for this purpose, but the pro- 
ject soon proved impossible. See the " Journals of John Linck- 
laen" (Putnam's). Many anti-slavery people would use only maple 
sugar, since slave labor was connected with the manufacture of 
cane sugar. 

3 The Indians had noticed the resemblance of the fruit of the 
buckeye {aesculus glabra) to the iris of tlie deer's eye, and called 
the tree " lietuck" or buck's eye. They applied the same term to 
a man with a powerful eye. The white men of Ohio and northern 
Ken tuck}' used the soft wood of the buckeye tree for cabins and for 
fashioning bowls and cradles. The bark was used as a dyestuff and 
the fruit as a substitute for soap. In 1834 a '' buckeye dinner *' 
was given in Cincinnati. In the campaign of 1840 the buckeye 



PIONEER LIFE IN THE OHIO VALLEY 



155 



/ 



Europeans soon learned to remove the liiisk fi'om the 
grain of Indian corn by soaking it in lye made of 
wood ash, and so convert it into "hominy." By 
mixing beans with the corn, another Indian food, 
"succotash," was produced. When ground, the corn 
w^as made into cakes and bread, whilst the parched 
grains constituted the most convenient form of food 
for the hunter to prepare and to carry. 

The American bison, commonly called the buffalo, 
was described as "larger than an ox, has short 
black horns, 
with a large 
beard under 
his chin, and 

his head so full ^^^ 

of hair that it ^M^ f 

falls over his 

eyes and gives ^^ WK ,. '^ 

him a frightful 
look." From 
such descrip- 
tions, cuts of the buffalo were made and appeared in 
the eastern magazines. It was said to be the only 
species of w^ild cow to be found in America. 

The contour of the farms as laid out in the uplands 
of the Northwest Territory differed from that on the 
eastern side of the mountains and south of the Ohio. 
In the latter country, the farmer chose the middle of 
a valley as a starting point and extended his culti- 

cabin was carried in processions because the opponents of "William 
Henry Harrison, of Ohio, said he was fitted for nothing better than 
to sit in a log cabin and drink hard cider. Gradually the people of 
Ohio became known as " Buckeyes." 




15G THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

vatecl land in all directions toward the adjacent 
mountain ridges. The farms thus resembled an 
amphitheater, the farmhouse occupying the lowest 
part and the mountain ridges forming the boundaries. 
The surveys were made by private arrangement. 
Under government control, the surveys in the North- 
west Territory were made in an arbitrary manner by 
means of long lines, without regard to hill or valley. 
Because of malaria and the spring freshets, the 
western farmer chose the higher part of his tract for 
the location of his house. The eastern farmer saw a 
decided objection to this j)i'^ctice, since it often 
required the farm products to be hauled up hill to 
the house. 

So easy had been the acquirement of land in the 
outlying districts of the coast plain, that many 
believed the land west of the mountains could be 
acquired by simply taking possession of it. Some 
hastened to make " tomahaw^k titles" to large tracts 
by marking the trees with their initials, climbing 
even twenty to forty feet from the ground in an effort 
to gain a surer preemption. The refusal of the 
government to recognize these squatter claims was 
quite largely the cause of the borderer's feeling that 
the law was always tyrannical.^ 

^ The United States refused to acknowledge these "tomahawk 
improvements," and sent troops in 1785, to evict the settlers from 
near the Ohio. These "squatters" had posted notices for a 
convention to organize a government, on the assumption that "all 
mankind have an undoubted right to pass into every vacant country 
and there to form their constitutions." The government refused to 
recognize such an argument, and prevented the election of dele- 
gates. Yet the commanding officer of the troops reported that, not- 
withstanding his warnings, settlers "continue to enter the public 
lands by. forties and fifties." Later Congress passed preemption 



PIONEER LIFE IN THE OHIO VALLEY 157 

Sometimes the only shelter of the pioneer was a 
roof of wild cucumber tree bark, laid across poles. 
The log house for the first residence of a family was a 
square structure, frequently with but one room, and 
a " lean-to'' on the outside. Upon the marriage of a 
member of the family another cabin was constructed 
a few feet away from the old, and facing its front. 
The intervening space being covered, a "double 
cabin" was the result. 

A wedding was the most interesting event in the 
monotonous routine of pioneer settlement life. The 
ceremony must occur before noon in order to furnish 
the expected dinner for the guests. The groom and 
his attendants rode on horseback, accompanied by his 
family, from the house of his father. It was the 
custom to oppose many good-natured obstacles to the 
progress of the groom, such as felling trees or tying 
grapevines across the way. Or an ambuscade might 
be formed to send consternation to the party by sud- 
den rifle shots on all sides. It was also customary 
for several young men to leave the party about a mile 
from the bride's house and make a dasli through 
the woods for the bottle of whisky which was 
always awaiting the party on this occasion. The 
victor returned to extend the courtesy of his prize 
to the groom, his attendants, and then to the other 
members of the procession. After the ceremony came 
the dinner and then the dancing commenced, some- 
times continuing well into the following morning. 

laws, giving not more than 160 acres at a nominal price to a settler 
who inhabited and improved the land. Cooper's "The Prairie" 
describes a typical squatter family opposed to law and the church. 



158 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



The next day a number of skilled hewers assembled 
at the spot chosen for the home of the new couple and 
prepared the material for their house. The second day 

all came to- 
gether for the 
" raising." A 
few of the most 
skilled work- 
men remained 
a third day to 
smooth off the 
floor, make a 
"clapboard " 
door, and a split 
slab table. The 
bed was made 
by placing a forked stick in the floor at the proper 
place and running poles in two directions to the walls. 
Clapboards formed the bed springs. A few pegs were 
placed about the walls, a huge fireplace built of sticks 
or stones and plastered with mud, and a new Amer- 
ican home had been created. 




A WKSTKRN IIOMK 



CHAPTER XIV 

EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 

These voluntary exiles to a strange land had left 
behind them all opportunities for higher cultivation, 
but they realized that they must at least jDlant the 
seeds of such institutions in order to have them grow 
with their own lives. Because the necessary money 
was lacking, education by the state was largely a 
theory ; but the national public lands would supply 
the means. Hence Dr. Cutler, in his bargain with 
Congress, succeeded in having not only a section in 
each township set aside for public schools,^ but two 
townships, to be located in the Ohio Company's 
lands, "for the support of a literary institution." 
In 1795 these townships were located on high ground 
near the center of the companj^'s purchase, and sur- 
veyors were sent to lay out a town as the seat of the 
proposed college. In accord with its mission the 
town was named Athens, and in 1809 the Ohio Uni- 
versity was opened. 

Likewise the Symmes j^urchase carried a gift of one 
township, "for the purpose of establishing an academy 
or other public schools and seminaries of learning." 
This township was eventually located west of the 

^The "school funds" so created, although not always the most 
judiciously administered, have contributed to some extent to pro- 
duce the excellent public schools of the northwest. However, the 
state and local taxation for schools has usually yielded from seven to 
ten times as much per year as the income from the land fund. 

159 



160 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Symmes land, and the name of Oxford as suitable for 
a college site, was given to the town laid out in it. 
Here, in 1824, the Miami University was opened, the 
name being taken from the adjacent river. ^ 

In 1805 the inhabitants of the Western Reserve, not 
to be surpassed by their neighbors toward the south, 
opened the Erie Literary Society Seminary at Burton. 
The people were Presbyterians or Congregationalists, 
and wished an institution of higher learning to pre- 
pare young men for the ministry. The presbytery 
withdrew from the Burton seminary, and in 1826 
opened the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio. 
It was modeled after Yale, even to the buildings and 
general appearance of the surroundings.^ 

A few years later the communistic experiment of 
Oberlin Institute (now College) was begun, with an 
object the same as that of Western Reserve. The 
education of clergymen for the Episcopal church led 
to the establishment, largely by subscriptions secured 
in England, of Kenyon College at Gambler, Ohio. 
Lord Ken3^on and Lord Gambler were two of the 
English benefactors. 

These colleges were of small proportions, and alike 
suffered the vicissitudes of the frontier. During the 
first quarter of a century the Ohio University gradu- 
ated only twenty-five students. Adverse state legisla- 
tion robbed it of the larger part of its endowment. 
Miami University was for many years no better than 

^Both Ohio University and Miami Universitj^ are now partly 
supported by the state of Ohio. 

- Tlie colleo;e site was purchased from the company which had 
bought the Western Reserve lands from the state of Connecticut. 
Hence the name of the college. 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 161 

a grammar school. At one time the faculty of the 
Western Eeserve College was reduced to one professor 
and one tutor. The experiment of manual labor, 
which has time and again appeared as a "fad" in 
higher education, was tried and abandoned by Ober- 
lin, Kenyon, and Western Eeserve.^ 

Indeed, much could not be expected of these embry- 
onic institutions, considering the slow development of 
the parent colleges in the east. The Revolutionary 
war had sadly interfered with the higher life of the 
people. Newspapers had decreased in numbers, 
churches were put to other uses, and the few colleges 
in existence were hampered. Of these three factors 
the colleges rallied most slowly. In 1800 Harvard 
was one hundred and sixty-four years old,^ William 
and Mary one hundred and seven, and Yale one hun- 
dred. Yet Harvard averaged but forty graduates 
annually, Yale about the same number, while William 
and Mary had but fifty students. Yale's faculty may 



^ The colleges mentioned above continue active at this time, form- 
ing a few of the forty-one institutions in Ohio entitled to grant 
degrees. In the first edition of his "American Commonwealth," 
Mr. Bryce said some sarcastic things about the "universities" of 
Ohio. On the state aid granted to higher education, see a mono- 
graph by Professor H. B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins University, in 
a series issued by the commissioner of Education (1890), and a paper 
by Professor G. W. Knight, of the Ohio State University, in vol. 
1 of the publications of the American Historical Association. 

2 For an anniversary of Harvard College, in 1836, Oliver Wendell 
Holmes wrote a "song" descriptive of the small beginnings of that 
place of learning. One stanza runs : 

And who was on the Catalogue 

When college was begun? 
Two nephews of tlie President, 

And the Professor's son: 
(They turned a little Indian by 

As brown as any bun) ; 
Lord! how the seniors knocked about 

The freshman class of one! 



162 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

be considered typical. There was a professor of 
mathematics, a professor of languages, and a professor 
of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. The last 
named chair had been only recently created. The 
president of the college was the professor of divinity. 




( . A Front VIKW of V.M.E.COLI.I.GK, .ind the COLLEGE CirAI'EI.. NiwHAvtN 



A large share of the college teaching in these early 
times was done by tutors. 

The entrance requirements were ability to read and 
parse certain Latin authors, skill in making Latin 
verse, and a "good testimony of past blameless 
behavior." The course of study embraced arithmetic 
and geometry, rhetoric, logic and ethics, physics, 
metaphysics, politics and divinity, with a vast amount 
of drill in the ancient languages, such as Latin, 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 103 

Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac. There was but 
one course and no electives. The rigid treatment 
which had been found necessary for the student in 
earlier days gradually relaxed. Undergraduates 
found in any disorder could be seized by the night 
watch and held until the college authorities arrived. 
If students were out of lodgings after nine o'clock 






IK t HI ^ 




UUlii 



they could be held accountable for any damage. 
Public stripes in the hall were administered for grave 
offenses, but tutors were sometimes dismissed for 
striking pupils. 

Latin was the official language, and in Harvard^ 



^ The Columbian Magazine, December, 1788, describes the build- 
ings shown in the cut of Harvard college. "The building on 
the left, erected in 1762, was burned in 1764 and rebuilt at 
public expense and called Harvard Hall. The central build- 
ing was built in 1699 by Hon. Wm. Stoughton for a dormitory. 
It was taken down in 1780. The building on the right was 
erected in 1720 at the expense of the province and was called Mas- 
sachusetts Hall." 



164 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

students were forbidden to use their "mother tongue" 
except in delivering English orations. The api^oint- 
ment of Professor Silliman to a chair of natural 
sciences in Yale, about 1800, marks the introduction 
of scientific studies into the old classical curriculum 
of the colleges. In 1765, a medical college had been 




OLD BUILDINGS OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE 



opened in Philadelphia by William Shippen, Ben- 
jamin Rush, and others. 

The people now began to feel the first impulse of 
national pride in their home affairs. Cuts and 
descriptions of the American colleges appeared in tlie 
magazines. Writers urged the education of young 
men at home instead of sending them to Europe for 
that purpose. A general missionary spirit was felt 
by the eastern sectarian colleges toward the west. 
Unaided by land grants, graduates from tlie older col- 
leges founded places of learning with the advanced 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 165 

line of civilization.^ An education was possible in 
any place. Yet the history of American colleges 
until 1850 is largely an imitation of old world ideals. 
There was no originality, no individuality. A cast 
iron curriculum borrowed from the old world and 
with no electives prevented any development of the 
individual. The most laudable feature in the early 
history of higher education is not the proficiency 
reached, but the sacrifices under which the work was 
carried on. 

No sooner had peace returned than the various 
religious sects began their militant life with renewed 
zeal. But the old days of intolerance and persecution 
were gone. The adoption of a Constitution which in 
its first amendment forbade any official recognition of 
creed or sect was the final step in an absolute divorce 
of church and state. ^ A good-natured rivalry fore- 

1 In the present chapter only the early colleges located in the 
Northwest Territory are mentioned. To describe all the institu- 
tions born in the widening life of the people is impossible in this 
space, ir'rinceton is able to trace the dissemination of her doctrines 
in the following list of educational institutions founded by her 
alumni; 1770, Queen's Museum, North Carolina, later Zion College; 
1776, Timber Ridge, Virginia, grammar school (later Washington 
College); Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia; 1783, Transylvania 
University, now Kentucky University ; 1785, Martin Academy, Ten- 
nessee; Davidson Academy, now University of Nashville; 1790, Log 
Cabin School, later Jefferson College, now Washington and Jeffer- 
son, Pennsylvania; 1793, Greenville Colleg«e, Tennessee. 

-The evolution of an independent church is marked in the 
addresses sent by various sects to President Washington at the time 
of his first inauguration. They breathed the hope that he would 
not favor one denomination above another. They came from the 
German Lutherans, the General Assemblj^ of the Presbj^terians, 
the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal, the United Baptists, the 
German Reformed, the United Brethren, the Protestant Episcopal, 
the Reformed Dutch, the Quakers, the Roman Catholics, the 
Hebrew Congregation, the Universal church, and the Congrega- 
tional church. To each Washington gave assurance of religious 
freedom. ' ' All those who conduct tliemselves as worthy members 



16G THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

shadowed a coming brotherhood. The Congrega- 
tional churches of New England and the Presbyterians 
of the middle states accompanied the westward expan- 
sion of the people. Tlie Baptists found the southern 
colonies free from the old colonial persecution of an 
"established" church, and spread rapidly in that 
direction. The Church of England had suffered most 
in the Revolution, but it witli stood the shock of dis- 
establishment and gradually assumed the aspect of an 
independent church. The necessary changes were 
made in the ritual, and two clergymen were sent to 
England to be ordained so that the line of "apostolic 
succession" should not be broken.^ The Methodist 
movement was being introduced from England.^ The 

of the community are equally entitled to the protection of the civil 
gov^ernment. * * * xiie liberty of the people of these states in 
worshiping God agreeably to their consciences is not onl}- among 
the choicest of tlieir blessings, but also of their rights." See 
Sparks's "Washington," vol. XII. 

^ The Rev. William White, of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. Samuel 
Provoost, of New York, were the men sent over to be consecrated, 
although certain churches preferred to recognize Bishop Seabury, 
who had been consecrated in Aberdeen two years before. There 
was objection made by the other Protestant sects to the church 
assuming the name "Protestant"' Episcopal. Complaint was also 
made because some states turned the forfeited Established Church 
property over to the Episcopalians. Even after the Revolution the 
Maryland Legislature appropriated money to build pews for its 
members in an Episcopal church. 

-So many stories of the " methods" of this sect reached America 
that many attended their meetings with no little curiosity and often 
disappointment. A Connecticut Congregationalist, temporarily liv- 
ing in Columbia, South Carolina, in 18()o, wrote in his diary: "The 
order of the exercises did not ditfer from that of Congregational 
meetings. The singing was better than I had expected it would 
be. * * * From the account which had been given me of the 
Methodist meeting. I had expected to 'witness more indecorum 
and irregularity. Some groans were made; though I did not think 
they were very natural ones. The preaching did not please me 
* * * it was all one uninterrupted current of affected pathos and 
monotonous roar. The audience appeared well dressed and respect- 
able. I saw nothing like levity exhibited by anybody present. 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 167 

Roman Catholics had not assumed the proportions 
they were destined to reach when the European 
emigration should extend beyond the English and the 
Protestant Germans and French. 

Newspapers had shown immense powers of recu- 
peration. Although the first one had been printed in 
the colonies seventy-one years before the Revolution- 
ary war, there were but thirty-seven in existence when 
the war was finally commenced. During the war they 
decreased to less than twenty, but when the contro- 
versy arose over the adoption of the Constitution, the 
demand for a public hearing increased their number 
to sixty-two. From simply stating bare facts, they 
began to assume a controversial and literary character. 
By 1800 there were at least one hundred and ninety 
regular newspapers and magazines published in the 
United States. In 1784 the daily Pennsylvania Packet 
appeared, and was published continuously until 1847. 
In 1810 there were more than twenty daily papers 
regularly issued. 

No doubt the opportunity for publishing results of 
investigations, as well as the addition of scientific 
studies to the college curriculum, contributed to the 
zeal for scientific experiments and investigation which 
marked the close of the last century. The Montgolfiers, 
in France, had brought to a successful end their 
experiments with a hot air balloon. Reports of the 
ascent and descent of their sheep, cock, and duck 
reached America and were pictured in the maga- 

The house was filled by people. All those in the gallery were 
black." Diary of Edward Hooker in the first report of the His- 
torical Manuscripts Commission, Washington, 1897. 



168 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



zines, although with very little appreciation of the 
necessary proportions of the balloon. A number 
of similar experiments were undertaken in America. 
In 1793, Blanchard, "the bold aeronaut," made an 
ascent from the prison yard in Philadelphia. He was 

dressed in a plain 
blue suit, a cocked 
hat and white feath- 
ers. The "boat" 
attached to the bal- 
loon was painted blue 
and was spangled. 
The balloon was of 
a yellowish colored 
silk highly var- 
nished, over which 
there was a strong 
net work. Blanchard 
bore a letter from 
President Washing- 
ton, who witnessed 
the ascent, request- 
ing people to render 
aid to him. He de- 
scended in New Jer- 
sey, having covered 
revived the old-time 




Uiir (lor^nr ofd^ Of^^^ ^''^^' " " 



fifteen miles. ^ Such ventures 
project of a flying machine. 

The coming of the genius of invention, in which 
the American people have so signally excelled, was 



^ Condensed from Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser. The cuts 
of the Montgoltier balloon are from the Boston Magazine, 1784. 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 169 



foretold in the descriiDtions of processes and appli- 
ances printed in the magazines. One writer describes 
a drill machine for seeding ; another a windmill ; a 
third a sun-dial. A glass chimney for a candle is 
suggested. As the height of buildings inci'eased the 
danger from fire grew 
and several designs 
for fire-escapes ap- 
peared. One of these, 
which employed a 
bag for lowering tlie 
rescued person, is 
not, in principle, un- 
like some of the mod- 
ern apparatus. A 
correspondent de- 
scribed at some 
length the manufac- 
ture of salt from sea 
water in New Hamp- 
shire. The Avater 
was let into pans and 
evaporated by heat. 
Strangely enougli, 
the experiments 
along two lines des- 
tined to cause the most lasting results to the 
American people created the least mention. The 
manufacture of the Watt condensing engine had been 
barely commenced in England when the Revolutionary 
war deprived the American colonies of its benefit. In 
any event, the policy of England in prohibiting the 




170 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



exportation of manufacturing machinery would have 
had the same result. Soon after the close of the 
war, a Columbia college professor in New York city 
delivered a course of lectures on the possibility of 

harnessing a steam 
1 engine to a flour- 
ing mill and sev- 
eral projects of this 
k i n d were dis- 
cussed but with no 
results. 

The many noble 
water courses in 
America and the 
rajDidly growing 
commerce sug- 
gested constantly 
the pressing need 
of an improved me- 
chanical method 
for propelling a 
boat. In 1 7 8 4 , 
Washington wrote 
in his diary at 
Bath, now Berkely 
Springs, West Vir- 
gin i a : "Was 
showed the Model of a Boat constructed by the 
ingenious Mr. Eumsey for ascending rapid currents 
by mechanism ; the principles of this were not only 
shown & fully explained to me but to my very great 
satisfaction, exhibited in practice in private under 




A SUOGESTIOX FOR A FIRE ESCAPE 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 171 



the injunction of Secres}-, until he saw the effect of an 
application he was about to Make to the Assembly of 
this State for a reward." This mechanism depended 
upon the action of the current on certain "settino" 
poles ;" but Rumsey three years later attached steam 
power to his boat, securing motion by admitting 
water at the prow and expelling it from the stern. 
He was granted 
rights of navigat- 
ing streams in Vir- 
ginia, New York, 
and Maryland. 

Meanwhile, 
John Fitch, a wan- 
dering Connecticut 
watchmaker, was 
experimenting 
with a steam en- 
gine which he had 
constructed in 
1786 and which he 
placed in a skiff on 

the river near Philadelphia. He first tried and re- 
jected stern paddles and then placed them in sets upon 
the sides of the boat, moving them alternately by con- 
necting beams. The next year he built a larger boat, 
a cut of which was shown in the Columhian Magazine. 
His third boat was sixty feet long and was considered 
a complete success. The paddles were placed at the 
stern. The boat was enlarged in 1790 and ran as a 
packet for several months between Philadelphia and 
* From the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1776. 




A NEW HAMPSHIRE SALT WORKS 



172 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Burlington carrying several thousand passengers in 
that time. But the company could not be persuaded 
to put more money in the venture and disbanded, 
leaving Fitch without capital although holding several 
state patents. 

Other successful experiments were made by Samuel 
Morey, Nicholas I. Rooseveldt, and by John Cox 
Stevens, who built a stern propeller. Fitch, although 
penniless continued his experiments, having been 
granted a patent by the United States in 1791. It is 
said that his death seven years later was caused by his 
own hand. A much more brilliant inventor, Robert 
Fulton, who had lived in London and Paris and had 
attracted great attention by his submarine boat, was 
assisted financially by Robert R. Livingston, Chan- 
cellor of the state of New York, himself an inventor 
and a patron of arts and letters. In 1807, Fulton 
secured an engine from England and placed it in a ves- 
sel on the Hudson. The trial was made on August 
11, 1807, and tlie Clermont, named from Living- 
ston's country seat, steamed from New York to 
Albany in thirty-two hours. Six passengers were 
carried at their own risk. 

Thereafter the Clermont was run as a packet 
between these cities. The passengers were exposed 
to showers of spray from the uncovered paddle 
wheels and were obliged to sleep in a kind of cabin on 
the roof which covered and protected the boiler. The 
steering apparatus was imperfect and the vessel could 
not turn itself at Albany. Before the following sum- 
mer, the Clermont was improved and the inventor and 
his bride were carried as passengers on the first trip. 



EVIDENCES OF THE HIGHER LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 173 



The Car of Neptime, Paragon, Chancellor Livingston, 
and the Kent were soon added to the line of packets. 

The Clermont was really the twelfth boat built in 
America to be propelled by steam ; yet it was the first 
to secure sufficient financial aid to make it more than 
an experiment. The work of Rumsey and Fitch was 
well supplemented by that of Fulton. Fitch charged 
Fulton with hav- 
ing stolen his ideas 
from some papers 
which once hap- 
pened to fall into 
Fulton's hands. 
The claims ad- 
vanced by these 
men and some 
minor contributors 
to steam naviga- 
tion engendered a 
endless. 

The other invention which so affected American 
political as well as economic life attracted much less 
attention. It was the cotton-gin, given to the world 
in 1792 by Eli Whitney, a Connecticut schoolmaster, 
who was residing temporarily in Georgia. By its use 
a laborer could clean from the seed about two hundred 
times the amount of cotton he was able to clean with- 
out it. In 1792 the United States shipped to Europe 
189,500 pounds of cotton. In 1803 over 41,000,000 
pounds were exported and slave labor and the slavery 
question assumed a new aspect. 

England, desiring to sell British manufactures in 




dispute which promises to be 



174 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the American colonies, had never offered encourage- 
ment to inventors, although certain of the colonies 
had given monopolies or patents on individual inven- 
tions. After the Revolution the states began to issue 
patents and exclusive rights. The Constitution pro- 
vided for such reward to inventors by the general 
government, and in conformity with an act of Con- 
gress in 1790 the two Secretaries of War and State 
and the Attorney-General were made a board for con- 
sidering applications. The first issue was to Samuel 
Hopkins "for making pot and j^earl ashes." Patents 
for making candles, flour, and meal, punches for 
types, and distilling followed. During the first three 
years sixty-seven patents were issued. Tlie number 
continued small until the War of 1812 threw America 
on her own resources and so secured an industrial 
independence. 



j>'i 



CHAPTER XV 

THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 

The visible parts of the Union had not assumed 
much proportion at the beginning of the new cen- 
tury. The first seat of the Revolutionary govern- 
ment, Philadelphia, had never been regularly chosen. 
The first Continental Congress met in thg^t city, since 
it was the most central and most accessible. The 
war came on and the Congress was obliged to assume 
the powers of government. It continued to sit in Phila- 
delphia for ten years, except when driven out by the 
enemy. After the close of the war some country boys, 
who had been enlisted near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 
but had never seen active service, drove Congress 
from Philadeli^hia because there was no money to pay 
them. Thus that city lost her chance of becoming 
the permanent seat of government. In its infancy 
the national agency must look for protection to the 
state in which it was located. 

Driven from pillar to post in the vicissitudes of war 
and the subsequent disorders. Congress by default 
allowed Washington to be inaugurated and the con- 
stitutional government to be set up in the rebuilt 
'* Federal Hall" in New York city. But the 
members from the south were not satisfied. They 
recalled the early promise of the Potomac river, the 
natural thoroughfare to the west, and by combina- 
tions blocked every attempt to locate the capital to 

175 



176 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 






the north^vard. Self-interest has rarely been more 
manifest than in the triangular contest between New 
York and New England, the middle states, and the 
south, for this supposed prize. 

At last, by a bargain between Hamilton and Jef- 
ferson,^ Hamilton obtained the assumption of the 
state debts, the capital went to Philadelphia for ten 

years to satisfy her 
lodging-house kee^Ders 
and merchants, and 
was then to be carried 
to the Potomac " at 
some space between 
the mouth of the East- 
ern Branch and Con- 
ococheague . " ^ New 
York protested in 
vain. The money 
which she had spent in 
remodeling *' Federal 
Hall," and on the 
building of a presi- 
dent's house, was 
lost. 
According to tliis agreement, after a residence of 

• ' J etferson thought he had been " tricked"' by Hamilton in this 
deal. For particulars see Jefferson's Writings, vol. III. ; Hamilton's 
Works, vol. III. 

^ Conococheague creek flows through Franklin county, Pennsyl- 
vania, and empties into the Potomac, not far from Hagerstovvn, 
Maryland. The Eastern branch of the Potomac is now called Ana- 
costia creek. lt>^ mouth lies inside the District. The commis- 
sioners had therefore an option of over one hundred miles of the 
Potomac, but chose the extreme lower part. Subsequently the 
limit of choice was extended to some ten miles below the moiith of 
the Eastern Branch in order to secure a location for a navy yard. 




FKDEUAL HALL. JN'KW VOKK 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 177 

one year in New York, the embryonic government, in 
the autumn of 1790, carted its belongings to Phila- 
delphia for the allotted ten years to await the selec- 
tion of the Potomac site and the erection of the new 
buildings. The limits assigned for the site on the 
Potomac approached on the south within a few miles 
of Washington's lands, and to him was given a 
general oversight of the locating and building of the 
capital. It was a fresh evidence of public confidence 
in the unselfishness and fidelity of that great man. 
Associated with him by an act of Congress were three 
commissioners : Ex-Governor Johnson, of Maryland ; 
Daniel Carroll, who owned extensive lands within 
the limits ; and Dr. David Stuart (Stewart), who 
resided at Abingdon, a plantation a few miles above 
Alexandria. He had married the Avidow of Mrs. 
Washington's son. 

The town of Alexandria had been located several 
years before at the head of tide-water navigation on 
the Potomac. The junction of the Eastern Branch 
with the Potomac proper, just above Alexandria, 
seemed to afford facilities for shipping interests and a 
navy yard so essential to the new capital, and here 
was located by the commissioners the ten miles 
square which the Constitution demanded for the seat 
of government. In April, 1791, a corner boundary 
stone was set with Masonic ceremonies at Jones's 
Point, Virginia, and ten-mile lines were run at right 
angles, from whose ends the square was completed. 
The land enclosed thereby was named the Territory 
(later changed to District) of Columbia, and to the 
city to be located within it was given by universal 



178 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

consent the name of Washington. The district 
embraced Alexandria, Georgetown, Hamburg, Car- 
rollsburg, and several other small villages.^ Andrew 




THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 



Ellicott, a noted surveyor of Pennsylvania,had charge 
of running the boundary lines. 

Major L'Enfant, a French engineer who had come 

^ Columbia is the feminine of Columbus, although it is close to the 
Spanish Colombia. The tract ceded by Maryland in 1788, and Vir- 
ginia in 1789, contained originally one hundred square miles, 
according to the Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 
VIII., 17. In 1846 Congress retroceded that portion lying in Vir- 
ginia, reducing the size of the District to seventy-two square miles. 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 179 

over with D'Estaing and remained after the close of 
the war, was employed to draw a plan for a city, and 
with plans of the cities of Europe before him he 
evolved a union of the rectangular and radiating 
systems. It is sometimes called a gridiron laid on 
several wheels. At the hubs the principal buildings 
were to be located.^ 

After numerous meetings of the commissioners at 
Suter's tavern in Georgetown, they located one of the 
centers of radiation on the high ground near the junc- 
tion of the Eastern branch with the Potomac proper, 
not without susj^icion of undue influence by Carroll, 
whose lands lay in that direction. Here the caj)itol 
was located, facing eastward toward the junction.^ 
A mile away toward the northwest on a bit of high 
ground in another point of radiation the president's 
house was located. Between the two sites the trees 
were felled preparatory to making a broad avenue. 
It crossed a small stream commonly called Goose 
Creek but which was renamed the Tiber. 

In Sej)tember, 1793, the work on the capitol had 
progressed sufficiently to have the corner-stone laid, 
President Washington acting as Worshipful Master of 

^ This combination was thought to give the readiest aocess to all 
parts of the cit5^ One result is that fifty-four per cent, or over 
one-half the city, is occupied by streets, squares, public buildings 
and small parks. The boasted city of Paris has but twenty-five per 
cent so occupied. 

2 Some residents of Washington blame the cupidity of Carroll in 
demanding exorbitant prices for his land as the cause of the failure 
of that portion of the city in front of the capitol to develop. But 
the higher ground toward the northwest, as well as the placing of 
the various government buildings in that direction, contributed to 
draw residences away from the point. Visitors to Washington who 
are unfamiliar with its local history cannot account for the placing 
of the goddess on the capitol with her back to the city proper. 



180 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the Masonic ceremonies. The j)roper salutes were 
fired by the Alexandria Volunteer Artillery. Accord- 
ing to the newspapers there was "a procession which 
took place amid a brilliant crowd of spectators of both 
sexes." Later all repaired to "an extensive booth 
where an ox of five hundred pounds' weight was 
barbecued, of which the company generally j)artook 
with every abundance of other recreation." 

The difficulties under which the buildings were con- 
structed in the rural neighborhood and in the absence 
of workmen and machinery, seemed at times insur- 
mountable. Numerous prophecies were made that 
the capital would be removed from so unfavorable a 
place. The Avorkmen suff'ered from fever on the low 
grounds. L' Enfant refused to disclose his plans in 
advance, and when Carroll built a new house, 
L' Enfant tore it down because it stood in a proposed 
avenue. Carroll held his lands at such high rates 
that no one could purchase. David Burns, another 
land owner, obstructed progress by refusing to sell to 
the Commissioners. The advertised auction sale of 
lots in the new city attracted few buyers. Between 
sessions of Congress, Washington spent most of his 
time on the site trying to hasten the work. At times 
he almost despaired. Jeff'erson openly warned the 
residents that if everything was not in readiness for 
Congress at the required time (1800) , the delay might 
prove fatal to their hopes. 

The members of Congress began to gather in the 
new city in November, 1800, and many, especially 
those from New York and Pennsjdvania, made no 
effort to conceal tlieir disgust. Secretary Wolcott 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 181 

complained about leaving "the comforts of Phila- 
delphia to go to the Indian place with the long name 
in the woods on the Potomac." The official ^papers 
had been sent down in " seven large boxes and four 
or five smaller ones." Only the Senate wing of the 
capitol was ready for Congress, and the House was 
crowded into such narrow quarters under the Senate 
that it seemed impossible at first to find room for the 
reporters inside the bar. There was no gallery in the 
Senate chamber since that body was partly executive 
in its functions and frequently held secret sessions. 

Away through the cleared line of woods, one could 
see the sandstone walls of the President's house. 
Between were deep morasses covered with alder 
bushes. On another high bit of ground the national 
church was to be erected, but thus far the site was not 
even cleared of trees. Where Congressmen had 
pictured an elegant city, was nothing but scrub oaks 
on the higher ground and tangled bushes on the 
marshy flats. There were only two comfortable 
residences, in which lived Carroll and Young, two 
original owners of the land. The unfinished Blodgett 
hotel, funds for which had been raised by a lottery, 
and a row of partly finished houses added to the 
dreariness. But notwithstanding the inconveniences, 
all accepted the permanent housing of the govern- 
ment as a prophecy of better things. Jurisdiction 
over the territory had been granted by Virginia and 
Maryland. The federal government at last had a 
title to a spot of earth free from any state. Congress 
was to assemble in a building for which it was not 
indebted to the selfish interests of any state. There- 



182 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

fore, President Adams, in his reply to tlie addresses of 
Congress, congratulated them " on assembling for the 
first time in this solemn temple." * William Cobbett, 
a political scribbler of the day, ridiculed this apos- 
trophe of Adams as "cant." He declared that the 
solemn temple would not hold two hundred persons. 
*'The fact is the city is a mere ragged wilderness in 
which more money has been sunk than the whole 
district for twenty miles around would bring." 

Meager as were the facilities for the reception of 
the government, they were fully as liberal as the con- 
ception of the members of Congress of the future 
scope or present needs of the Union. State interests 
and state needs were everything ; national demands 
were nothing. Grudgingly Congress voted the money 
necessary to supplement the cash gifts of Maryland 
and Virginia for completing the government build- 
ings. The revenue arising from the sale of the lots, 
it was supposed, would construct the streets and 
improve the public grounds. But the contraction 
following the Hamilton inflation brought such visions 
to an untimely end. The speculating company 
headed by Robert Morris, which had bought so many 
lots, went down with a crash, and Morris was sent to 
Prune street prison, Philadelphia, for debt. The 
aqueduct which was to convey water from the Great 
Falls to run through and purify the streets, as was 
done in ancient Rome, was not begun. The original 

1 Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, was a senator, and wrote from 
Washington: "We want nothing here but houses, cellars, kitchens, 
well-informed men, amiable women, and other trifles of this kind 
to make our city perfect."' He declared with some irony that it was 
the very best city in the world for a future residence. 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 



183 



plan of having no house higlier tlian forty feet nor 
lower than thirty-fiYe, and requiring an outer wall of 
brick or stone, was modified. Any kind of house was 
welcome which would afford the much-needed lodg- 
ings, and save the journey to Georgetown across the 
" Tiber " and over the very bad road.' 

Over at the President's house, Mrs. John Adams 
was writing doleful letters to her friends about the 
great bare rooms which would require thirty servants 
to keep in order ; about 
the lack of bells in the 
house ; and the imjDos- 
sibility of getting suffi- 
cient wood cut to keep 
warm, althoucjh the 
house was surrounded 
by woods. Her driver 
had lost his way in 
bringing her from 
Philadelphia to Wash- 
ington through the thinly settled country. All the 
surroundings proved an unpleasant contrast to her 
native New England. 

Ten years before, Congress had voted $14,000 to 
furnish Washington's residence in Philadelphia, and 
the same sum for his successor. This furniture was 
sold when tlie government moved to Washington, and 

^Tom Moore, the Irish poet, visited Washington in 1805, and 
wrote in his "Lines to Thomas Hume" : 

In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom. 
Come, let me lead thee oer tliis "second Rome!" 
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davl bow. 
And what was Goose Creek once is Tiber now;— 
This embryo capital, where Fancy sees 
Squares in morasses, obelisks m trees. 




THK PRKSIDENT'S MANSION, 1810 



184 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

$15,000 given to President Adams to furnish the new 
house. But when it was found that he had used a 
portion of this sum to buy seven horses, a carriage 
and a market wagon, Congress declared that the 
next president, Jefferson, must content himself with 
the proceeds of the sale of the furniture which 
was "decayed, out of repair or unfit for use," and 
whatever unexpended balance his predecessor had 
left. 

The ownership of a residence and the centraliza- 
tion of the government in one place seemed to give 
the nascent Union strength, and to inspire hope for 
its future. Men began to regard service in the Con- 
gress at Washington as almost equal to serving in 
their respective state legislatures. The Union was 
growing in the affections and esteem of the people, 
but the capital city remained long a Aveakling. A 
traveler in 1807 described it : 

It remains, after ten years of expensive fostering, a rickety 
infant — unable to go alone. . . . The Federal city is in reality 
neither town nor village. — It may be compared to a hunting-seat, 
where state sportsmen may run horses, and fight cocks; kill Time 
under cover, and shoot Public-Service flj^ing. ... A few scat- 
tered hamlets here and there indicate a sordid and dependent popu- 
lation ; and 2 or 3 edifices upon distant hills. . . . There sits the 
President upon a summer recess — like a pelican in the wilderness or 
a sparrow upon the house top. . . . Imagine the members of 
both Houses on a frosty morning trudging along through mire and 
snow — like so many pilgrims incurring voluntary hardships on a 
journey of penance; and you will no longer wonder that the House 
is never full at the roll-call. 

Another visitor tells of the capital without inhabi- 
tants, and a dockyard without ships. During the 
winter the members suffered from the draughts which 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 185 

penetrated the unfinished building. A speaker 
quoted the couplet 

Calling the winds, through long arcades to roar, 
Proud to catch cold, at a Venetian door. 

The doorkeeper of the House was authorized to "erect 
a shelter for the purpose of protecting from the 
weather the firewood that may be required by the 
two Houses of Congress, the expense to be paid out of 
the contingent , . 

fund." He was also -.^, , ^-^ --^ 

given an additional (^ r- 

assistant and two r^ ""- — ^--*^ 

horses for collecting "^^ 

firewood. John -^ 

RandoliDh of Roa- 
noke used to ride on 
horseback a c c o m - 
panied by his dogs 
through the mud 
from Georgetown to 
the capitol to at- 
tend the daily sessions. Pennsylvania avenue was not 
supplied with brick sidewalks until 1830. It was 
many years before Washington could rival New York 
or Philadelphia in fashion and display. 

The "good times" attending the establishment of 
the Constitution, and the restoration of financial con- 
fidence, had brought an extravagance in dress to the 
large cities. The exaggerations of the French court 
were imitated, especially in the Marie Antoinette 
head-dress. Dr. Rush and other physicians in vain 
showed the danger of women wearing these cushions 




(FKDM THK MASSACHUSKTTS MAGAZIXK, 1792> 



186 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

on their heads in a temperature of ninety degrees. 
A boy i^araded the streets of Philadelphia wearing a 
burlesque coiffure. Dr. Cutler was not pleased with 
the head-dress of Mrs. General Knox, whom he met 
in New York when he went to negotiate for the Ohio 
Company's land. "She is sociable and would be 
very agreeable were it not for her affected singularity 
in dressing her hair. She seems to mimic a military 
style, which to me is disgusting in a female. Her 
hair in front is craped at least a foot high, much in 
the form of a churn bottom upward, and topped off 
with black gauze, which hangs iu streamers down her 
back. Her hair, which is in a large braid, turned up 
and confined with a monstrous large crooked comb. 
She reminded me of the monstrous caj) worn by the 
Marquis Lafayette's valet — commonly called, on this 
account, the Marquis' Devil.^''^ In men's dress the 
extravagance took the form of superfluous buttons. A 
suit of clothes in the possession of the Pennsylvania 
Historical Society which belonged to Dr. Shippen has 
twenty-one buttons on the coat, eighteen on the waist- 
coat and twelve on the small clothes. One writer 
estimated that £300,000 worth of buttons was im- 
ported into the United States annually. Tench Coxe^ 

^ From "Life and Letters of Manasseh Cutler." Two stanzas of a 
manuscript poem in the Lenox Library, New York, run: 

Ladies can you in Conscience say 
Your useless costly tine Array, 
As Tossils, Topknots, tlow'ry Stuffs, 
Jewels and Rings, and heaps of Ruffs; 

Can you spend Months to curl your hair. 
And Years to lix the Clothes you wear? 
Can you spend all the Sabbath Morn, 
Your Uust and Ashes to adorn! 

2 A Philadelphia economist in "A View of the United States." 



THE NATIONAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT 187 

thought that the importation of " the finer kinds of 
coat, vest and sleeve buttons, buckles, brooches, 
breastpins, and other trinkets into this port (Philadel- 
phia) only is supposed to have amounted in a single 
year to ten thousand pounds sterling, which cost the 
wearers above 60,000 dollars." Some economists 
suggested a law prohibiting extravagance in dress or 
prescribing a comjDulsory national dress suitable to 
the climate. 

Such excesses showed the enervation and weakness 
to Avhich the growing wealth of the United States 
might have brought the people, had not a corrective 
been found in the new west. The first of the spas- 
modic extensions of territory was now about to come 
from an undue pressure on the southwestern boundary 
line ; but a retroactive influence contributing to a 
larger expansion of life was constantly exerted by the 
vigorous and often crude frontier on the older por- 
tions of the country. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE PRESSURE ON THE SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY 

LINE 

The treaty between England and the United States 
at the close of the Revolutionary war had left the 
Spanish in possession of the Floridas, with an uncer- 
tain boundary line between them and the United 
States. Spain still clung to her old restrictive com- 
mercial policy and refused to allow the Americans 
to use the MississipjDi below the boundary which she 
claimed.^ The Kentuckians and Tennesseeans were 
in desperate straits. Their waterways led to New 
Orleans, where, naturally, their products should have 
been transferred to ocean vessels. But the Spanish 
customs officers boarded every boat which floated 
below the bluff upon which stood the fort and church 
and at the foot of which were clustered the few 
wretched huts constituting the Spanish outpost of 
Natchez. The Americans could raise great crops, 
but could not reach a market. Tobacco was sold in 
Kentucky for two dollars a hundred, although it 
brought nine and a half dollars in Virginia. Indian 
corn went begging at ninepence the bushel ; flour and 
pork at twelve shillings the hundred. Congress was 

^See chapter VII. England and the United States announced 
the thirty-first degree north latitude as the boundary, but Spain, 
which had not been consulted, insisted upon the line of the mouth 
of the Yazoo river, above the thirty-second degree. That had been 
the extent of West Florida as set by George III. in 1763. The inter- 
vening territory was in dispute until the Pincknej' treaty of 1795. 

188 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 189 

appealed to, but the country was in no condition to 
make Spain do anything. Further, many people in 
the Atlantic states imagined that the products of the 
Ohio valley, if blocked at New Orleans, would force a 
way across the mountains to the Atlantic ports, and 
so be profitable to them. We inherited the idea of a 
colonial trade from outlying possessions, and have 
never been able to rid ourselves of it. But it was 
questionable how long the western people would 
stand this condition of things.^ 

Thomas Amis, a North Carolina trader, in 1786, 
had ventured in a flatboat, loaded with small wares, 
down the Mississipx3i river below the Spanish boun- 
dary line. He was seized and imprisoned ; his goods 
were confiscated ; and he was at length turned loose 
to tramp his weary way back to his home. No pil- 
grim returning from the Holy Land showing the 
stripes which had been inflicted on him by the Turks 
aroused more indignation than did Amis with his 
story. He left a trail of hostility to Spain all along 
his journey. William Swimmer had goods to the 
value of $1,980 seized. Such cases were numerous. 

The people decided to wait no longer for the dip- 
lomatic Congress. George Rogers Clark, of Revolu- 
tionary fame, was put at tlie head of the military 
companies hastily organized, and rej)risals were 
begun upon any Si^anish traders found in American 
territory. The action created great excitement in the 

^ "The Mississippi is fed by our tributaries. It is ours by the 
law of nature," said the western inhabitants. Madison wrote: 
"The Mississippi is to them everything. It is the Hudson, the 
Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable waters of the Atlantic 
states formed into one stream. ' ' 



190 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

eastern states and wild rumors prevailed. Some said 
the westerners contemplated annexing themselves to 
Spain ; others said to Canada. Some thought they 
intended petitioning France to repossess the valley. 
James Wilkinson was supposed to be at the head of 
the disaffection.* 

The Spanish commandant at New Orleans, thor- 
oughly frightened, relinquished his seizures, and in 
the treaty which Thomas Pinckney made with Spain 
in 1795 it was provided that " the navigation of the 
said river, in its whole breadth from its source to the 
ocean, shall be free." The privilege of warehousing 
grain at New Orleans until put on board an ocean 
vessel was also given. If abolished at New Orleans, 
another port was to be named for this purpose. 

By the same treaty, the United States gained the 
disputed land lying between the thirty-first degree 
and the line of the mouth of the Yazoo river. Here- 
after the southern line of the United States was to 
follow the thirty-first degree of latitude from the 
Mississippi to the Chattahoochee and down that river 
to the Flint and then in a straight line to the head of 
the St. Mary's and by that stream to the Atlantic 
Ocean. Four years later the Spanish evacuated Fort 



^ James Wilkinson, of Maryland, was associated with Colonel 
Benedict Arnold and Captain Aaron Burr in the Revolutionary 
war. He was prominent in the cabal against Washington, and 
after removing to Kentucky was concerned in the plots and 
schemes which marked the post-Revolutionar}^ days. He w^as re- 
employed in the army chiefly because he was considered dangerous 
as a citizen. As commander of the arm}' he was associated with 
the border life in the Mississippi valley, connected with Burr's 
expedition, and acquitted by a court-martial in the War of 1812; he 
finally died in Mexico. His questionable career has had few parallels 
in America. 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 



191 



Stephens ^ on the Tombigbee and moved down to 
Mobile. Andrew Ellicott, a Quaker surveyor, ran 
the accepted line of thirty-one degrees and set up a 
stone thirty miles south of the fort, bearing on its 
north face the words, " U. S. Lat. 31°, 1799," and 




SOUTHEASTERN LAND CESSIONS 



on its south face, ^'Dominio des M. Carlos IV., 1799." 
The census of 1800 showed little groups of Americans 
on the Tombigbee in what had been the disputed Span- 
ish belt. It was the beginning of the end. The American 
was slowly pushing the Spaniard from the continent. 

^The site of the old Spanish fort, St. Stephens, is known only by- 
some cellars. A centennial celebration was held in Hay, i899, 
commemorating the evacuation of the fort. There is a St. Stephens 
meridian and a St. Stephens base line in Alabama, named and located 
by Ellicott. This Pennsylvanian was connected with the rmining 
of a number of state boundaries and the laying out of the city of 
Washington. He first ascertained the exact height of Niagara 
Falls. At the time of his death he was a professor in West Point 
Military Academy, 



192 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

In 1787 South Carolina had ceded to the United 
States goyernment the strip of land, about fourteen 
miles wide, extending from her present western 
boundary to the Mississippi.^ North Carolina fol- 
lowed, two years later, by giving up what is now 
Tennessee. Georgia also yielded her claims to all 
lands west of her present boundary, and Congress 
gave to her, in return, that portion of the ceded South 
Carolina strip which lay north of her. The remainder 
of the ceded land was erected into the Mississippi 
Territory, from which states were to be formed in due 
time, as had been done in the Northwest Territory. 
The Gulf region was rounding into shape. 

Although the treaty of 1795 temporarily removed 
the greatest grievances against Spain, the time for a 
national expansion was evidently approaching. The 
restless southerner passing toward the west had 
crossed Tennessee and Kentucky, and now turned his 
expectant gaze upon the fertile Spanish land across 
the Mississippi. The region north of the Ohio was 
unattractive to him because its climate unfitted it for 
any extensive employment of his slave labor and for 
the crops with which he was most familiar. Many of 
his fellows who liad forsworn slavery and for that 
reason migrated north of the Ohio, were now ardent 
anti-slavery propagandists and likely to prove disa- 
greeable neiglibors.^ Beyond the Mississippi, Spain 

^ These western land claims north of the Ohio river were illus- 
trated in chapter X., where their cession to the general govern- 
ment was described. 

2 The man who has rid himself of a bad habit or practice is most 
intolerant of those who refuse to follow his example. Edward 
Tiffin, first governor of the State of Ohio, left Virginia because of 
slavery. Mrs. Joseph B. Cartmel, of Springfield, Ohio, possesses a 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 193 

had no annoying land system, required few title 
deeds, employed no surveyors, and made no evictions. 
Many Americans crossed the river to settle in this 
Spanish Louisiana, both as individuals and in com- 
panies. Daniel Boone, offended by the loss of a land 
suit in Kentucky, had migrated to Spanish territory 
where he was given a large grant and a military com- 
mand. Land companies were organized in the east- 
ern states to speculate in trans-Mississippi grants. 

The land was comparatively free and govern- 
ment almost unknown. Allegiance was of no 
moment. At first Spain encouraged the movement, 
although the church was alarmed at this influx of 
heretics. When Spain finally realized the danger of 
the element she had invited, it was too late. There 
were Americans at New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, 
St^jCliarles, Sainte Genevieve, and Saint Louis in 
northern Louisiana, as well as at New Orleans and 
Natchitoches in the southern portion. "American 
interests" would soon be heard pleading for pro- 
tection. But the crisis was precipitated in Europe. 
A rumor came that this easy ownership of the 
Spaniard had passed, by the secret treaty of San 
Ildefonso in 1800, to France under the aggressive 
Napoleon.^ 

manuscript journal of her grandfather, the Rev. James Smith, who 
removed from Virginia to Ohio to be in a free land. He says: "On 
arriving on shore I could but thank my God who had preserved me 
through many dangers & brought me at length to see a land where 
liberty prevails & where human blood is not shed like water by the 
hand of the merciless & unfeeling tyrant. Here are no objects of 
despair deprived of liberty & worn down with continual toil. . . . 
We see no backs furrowed with whipping, nor cheeks moistened 
with the tears of sorrow. ' ' 
^San Ildefonso, commonly called La Granja, is a village near 



194 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



The rise of Napoleon had startled the world. No 
people felt safe from this ambitious man, who over- 
threw and erected governments at will. The news 
that he had obtained from Spain the Louisiana 

country produced a 
powerful effect on 
America. The ex- 
isting understand- 
ing w i t h S 2D a i n 
would be abrogated. 
Indeed, Louisiana 
might become a 
starting - point for 
the spread of Na- 
poleonic power over 
all America. War- 
like measures were 
proposed in the en- 
suing session of 
Congress. Petitions 
and memorials 
flowed in from the 
alarmed settlers in 
the Mississippi val- 
ley. 

President Jeffer- 
son wrote to Liv- 
ingston, the American minister at France: "The 
cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to 

Madrid, which contains a royal castle. In return for Louisiana, 
Napoleon agreed to create a kingdom in Etruria for the son-in-law 
of the King of Spain. 




A TYPICAL LOUISIANA COURTYARD 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 195 

France works most sorely on the United States." 
After mentioning the friendship which had always 
existed between France and the United States, he 
continued: "There is on the globe one single spot, 
the iDOssessor of which is our natural and habitual 
enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the 
produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass 
to market, and from its fertility it will ere long 
yield more than half of our whole produce and con- 
tain more than half of our inhabitants. France, 
placing herself in that door, assumes to us the atti- 
tude of defiance. Spain might have retained it 
quietly for years." ^ 

Fortune granted a respite to the Americans. The 
blacks of Hayti, a French possession in the West 
Indies, had risen in 1791, massacred many of the 
whites, and gained control of the major part of 
the island. From the mountains they carried on a 
guerrilla warfare against the French troops sent to 
subdue them. They were aided by the fever, which 
carried off one-fourth of the invading army. The 
contest was prolonged over ten years, and it prevented 
France taking immediate possession of Louisiana 
after gaining it. Hayti was to have been the base 
of the French colonial empire in America.^ 

In order to quiet the western people, Jefferson sent 
James Monroe, who possessed "the unlimited confi- 
dence of the administration and of the western 
people," as a special ambassador to France to pur- 



^ See Jefferson's Works, vol. IV. 

2 This was the insurrection with which Toussaint I'Ouverture was 
connected. 



196 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

chase the "island" of New Orleans^ and West 
Florida.^ France would yet own the west bank of 
the river, but the possession of one side could not give 
a 1)0 wer of exclusion. Thus by one stroke, Jefferson 
hoiked to settle two troublesome questions. Failing 
to purchase, Monroe was to try to regain the right of 
deposit, and if that failed, then to make any arrange- 
ment possible. Even the possibility of war was con- 
sidered. Meanwhile Napoleon had sent Laussat to 
take nominal possession of Louisiana, and had ordered 
a fresh army for Santo Domingo ; but he was con- 
stantly trying to hit upon an excuse for abandoning 
the scheme of an American colonial empire, and 
thereby show the French peojole the daring of his 
power. He renewed the war with England, and pre- 
tended to fear lest that country would seize Louisiana. 
He needed money for the war. Thus it was that 
Livingston, who had for weeks pending the arrival 
of Monroe been pleading for the sale of New Orleans 
and the "barren sands and sunken marshes " of West 
Florida, was astounded to be asked concerning Loui- 
siana, " What will you give for the whole? " Living- 
ston managed to estimate twenty million francs as a 
fair price. The French agent, Marbois,^ asked one 

^The "Island of New Orleans'' is formed by the Iberville "river," 
really a bayou, which connects the Mississii^pi with Lake Ponchar- 
train, an arm of the Gulf. The city of New Orleans is located 
between the Mississippi and tlie lake. 

2 It wWl be observed constantly that people differed in their 
©pinions of what constituted West Florida. Undoubtedly it began 
at the east of the island of New Orleans, but how far east it 
extended was uncertain Jefferson intended it to include Mobile 
bay, possibly as far as the Perdido river. 

^ Frangois de Barbe Marbois (Mar-bwa) had been in America as 
secretary of the French legation during the Revolution. He mar- 
ried the daughter of Governor Moore, of Pennsylvania. After his 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 



197 



hundred million, but subsequently dropped to sixty 
million ($11,250,000), in addition to assuming debts 
amounting to twenty million francs ($3,750,000), 
which were due American citizens. And thus, after 
the arrival of Monroe, the bargain was made/ 

It was really an insignificant sum measured by 
either the extent or future possibilities of the country 
or by the freedom from 
a dangerous neighbor. 
Yet Napoleon had in- 
structed his agent to 
accept fifty million 
francs if more could 
not be obtained. By 
this transfer he had 
strengthened the 
United States against 
his rival. Great Brit- 
ain ; but he violated 

the agreement with Spain in bartering away her gift to 
France. He shattered the French dream of a colonial 
empire in America. The French never forgot the 
betrayal. It proved indeed what he called his 
" Louisianacide. " 

In America all was rejoicing. "The territory 
acquired has more than doubled the area of the 
United States," said Jefferson, "and the new part is 
not inferior to the old in soil, climate, productions 
and important communications." He would make 

return to France he rose rapidly in office, and was appointed by- 
Napoleon to conduct negotiations with Livingston. 

^McMaster, vol. II., page 630, estimates the total cost of the 
Louisiana purchase to June 30, 1880, at $27,267,621.98. 




OLD SPANISH BARRACKS, NEW ORLEANS 



198 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

immediate use of the acquisition by removing thither 
all the Indians east of the river ^ and opening their 
lands to settlement. "When we shall be full on this 
side, we may lay off a range of states on the western 
bank from head to mouth and so, range after range, 
advancing comj)actly as w^e multiply." 

Such contemplations were pleasant, but Jefferson 
had before him the more practical task of ascertain- 
ing something about the empire wliich he had bought 
as boys trade jack-knives — " unsight and unseen." 
Even its boundaries were uncertain. Spain gave it 
to France "with the same extent that it was when 
France possessed it" (before 1763), and the United 
States accepted the same uncertain limits. Living- 
ston reasoned himself and Monroe into the belief that 
it included "the West Floridas" as far as the Perdido 
river (to include Mobile bay) on the east of the Missis- 
sii)pi. The American expansion had not yet begun 
to threaten on the western line, and that boundary 
was less important. The purchase certainly em- 
l)raced all the land between the Mississii^pi and the 
Rocky mountains, and j^^i'^i^ps extended to the 
Pacific in the Northwest. It is now estimated at 
1,172,948 square miles. 

A still greater task awaited the president. Accord- 



^ The idea of colonizing the Indians west of the river dates from 
Jefferson. In his proposed amendment to the Constitution author- 
izing the purchase of Louisiana this is one provision. But the 
citizens of the trans-Mississippi section protested loudly, and Con- 
gress did not take the necessary action until 1834, when all the 
land lying bej^ond Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri was made into 
an Indian Territory. A number of tribes had been moved across in 
the meantime. The territory has been greatly decreased in size 
but is still reserved for the Indians. 



SOUTHWESTERN BOUNDARY LINE 199 

ing to the Constitution, the Senate shares the 
treaty-making power with him, and the sanction of 
that body was now necessary as well as the approval 
of the House of Representatives in providing the 
required money. But there w^as a good working 
majority of Republicans^ in each house when Jeffer- 
son called Congress in early session, October 17, 1803. 

1 In the rise of political parties there was unavoidable confusion 
of names. Hamilton and his followers adopted the name "Feder- 
alist," although "Unionist" would have been nearer their ideas of 
government. They did not want another federation. Jefferson 
favored adopting the w^ord "Republican" (from res piiblica, the 
public affair), based on the republic of Rome. Certain of his fol- 
lowers styled themselves "Democrats," from the French revolu- 
tionary clubs, but Jefferson never accepted it. Some modern 
writers include both names by calling the party "Democratic- 
Republicans." 



CHAPTER XVII 

TAKING OFFICIAL POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 

In Congress, the Louisiana purchase question at 
once cut deep lines across the young parties, and 
proved that sectional interests and fears would fre- 
quently work havoc with party theories. Jefferson 



/ 



J V_, 



~^ , 



UA ^^~ 






_^^^.^ifH»^^^-«=^- 



IX- 



I I' r I 



r— i. 

NKW ORLEANS IN 1774 



and his followers had always stood for limiting the 
actions of the central government to the powers actu- 
ally expressed in the Constitution, and the acquisition 
of territory was not among them. He therefore sug- 
gested an amendment to the Constitution giving 

200 



TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 201 

authority to the United States to add to its territory. 
His friends showed that such action would be a con- 
fession that he had ah*eady transcended his power. 
Jefferson yielded and sent word to his supporters that 
"the less said about any constitutional difficulty the 
better. Congress should do what is necessary in 
silence." The most theoretical men are sometimes 
practical. 

The opposition lay in New England, and was 
alarmed not so much over tlie possible breach of the 
Constitution as over the increased strength which the 
new territory would give the south and the west.^ 
New England fondly imagined that the presidency 
and other political perquisites could be kept forever, 
as they had been thus far, on the Atlantic slope. 
Her interests lay on the sea, and she had no sympathy 
with southern agriculture. Even her infant manu- 
factures would desire to prevent western migration 
for the sake of retaining workmen. Such considera- 
tions, grounded on inherited conservatism, were 
engendering an obstructionist feeling in that section 
characteristic to this day. 

The arguments in Congress against the ratification 
of the action of the president may be summed up : 

1. The title to the property of Louisiana is not 
good. Spain might object to France ceding it. 

2. The treaty-making power does not go so far as 

the acquisition of soil or people. 

^ John Quincy Adams said: "One inevitable consequence of the 
annexation would be to diminish the relative weight and influence 
of the northern section." Timothy Pickering, of Massachusetts, 
declared that the union was like a commercial house which could 
not admit new members without the unanimous consent of the 
partners. 



202 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

3. The treaty promises commercial favors to New 
Orleans. The Constitution forbids discrimination in 
favor of any American port. 

4. The regulation of commerce rests with Con- 
gress. The president has transcended his powers. 

5. To promise statehood to Louisiana is unconsti- 
tutional. That power resides with Congress. 

6. The entire action is impolitic, since it will 
incorporate an incongruous and inharmonious ele- 
ment into the United States. 

The subsequent ratification of the treaty by the 
Senate and the preparation of Congress to furnish the 
necessary money for tlie purchase, settled these basic 
questions of expansion : 

That the United States is not to be confined to a 
given territory, but has the right of extension always 
assumed by nations in the history of the world. 

That this natural expansion cannot be bound l)y 
political or constitutional theories. 

Tliat the central government has the right to acquire 
territory by treaty. 

That sectional interests and fears of the minority 
must yield to the will of the majority. 

That it is impossible to consider territorial expan- 
sion from an unprejudiced standpoint, since it is a law 
of growth, appeals to self-interest, and can be sup- 
ported by calling upon "patriotism." 

That whatever may be the later opinion concerning 
the advisability of adding to the nation's domain, the 
action seems warranted each time by the existing 
condition of affairs. 

The opposition newspapers had resorted to ridicule, 



TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 203 

especially since Jefferson in his report to Congress 
was led into some extravagant descriptions of the 
country of Louisiana, copied from the tales of early 
travelers. He told of Indians of gigantic stature ; of 
soil too rich for trees to grow upon, but covered with 
luxuriant grass; of a mountain "one hundred and 
eighty miles long and forty-five in width, composed of 
solid rock salt, without trees or even shrubs on it." 
A stream of pure salt water issued from its base.^ 

The Federalist newspapers declared that such tales 
surpassed those they had heard about the hoopsnakes 
which rolled around the western country, and the tree 
on the Muskingum river which produced shoes and 
stockings. One paper prophesied that the mountain 
would be found to be crowned by a salt American 
eagle ; another tliat it was simply Lot's wife magni- 
fied by the process of time. Other writers insisted 
that the Louisiana country also contained a spring 
from which poured a river of golden eagles already 
coined ; that there w^as also a mountain of solid 
refined sugar, and a lake of pure whisky. The 
United States Gazette gave space to this epigram : 

HEROSTRATUS of old, to eternize his name 
Sat the temple of Diana all in a flame ; 
But Jefferson lately of Bonaparte bought, 
To pickle his fame, a mountain of salt. 



' The report of the President to Congress which called out this 
ridicule may be found in the Ex. Docs, of the Vlllth Congress, 
1803. It was also printed separately as a pampldet. Jefferson had 
to depend for his material upon books written by Frencli travelers 
who did not discriminate between the authentic and the legend- 
ary. He also secured some information from his friends in New 
Orleans. Later he ascertained tliat there were salt mines within 
the purchase, although not salt mountains. 



204 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

A stanza on Jefferson, the philosopher president, 
set to the music of the " Blue Bells of Scotland" ran : 

Oh, what will he do with his philosophic fogs? 

He'll discover more salt mountains and breed more horned frogs, 

He'll improve his whirligig chair and call woodchuck prairie dogs. 

Ridicule and nonsense could not stop the progress 
of affairs. Laussat had tarried nine months in 
Louisiana awaiting orders from Napoleon, and now 
heard, to his chagrin, that he was to take simply tem- 
porary possession of Louisiana, and then turn it over 
to the Americans. He gave the inhabitants fair 
words when he announced the change. Napoleon, he 
said, had voluntarily emancipated them, and had 
secured them citizenship and statehood in the United 
States, where they would be independent and have a 
great future before them. They heard with stolid 
indifference, for the most part. Their attitude need 
have created no anxiety. They were accustomed to 
being put at stake in the shifting game of diplomacy. 
This would be their sixth change of ownership. Mar- 
bois predicted that they would say, " This change will 
not last longer than the others. " They had always 
been colonists, unprotected from the Indians, huddled 
in villages, using the land at will, with limited ideas 
of ownership and no ambition. A few powerful men 
held the masses in a dependent vassalage. If the 
crops failed, none starved. Slavery was not entirely 
responsible for the dependent whites. But it was an 
old-world paternalism which would disappear before a 
new-world individualism. The government of the 
United States had done more real good for its people 
beyond the Alleghanies in fifteen years than had been 



TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 205 

done by France and Spain for Louisiana in three cen- 
turies. 

Yet they were Gauls being delivered to Saxons, 
and to prevent possible trouble General Wilkinson 
assembled an armed force near New Orleans, w^hen 
he went to assist Governor Claiborne, of the Missis- 
sippi territory, in formally accepting the new posses- 
sion. They halted just outside the city while the 




LEANS— CITY HALL AND CATHEDRAL* 



Spanish flag was loAvered from its staff in the Place 
d'Armes, now Jackson Square, and the Spanish 
troops sailed away to Havana. Twenty days the 
French flag flew from the staff. On December 20, 
1803, Laussat met the American commissioners in 
the old Cabildo (City Hall), facing the square, and, 

* This view shows the front of the cathedral with the corner of 
the old Spanish Cabildo at the extreme left. Opposite is Jackson 
square. In it stood the staff on which the Fi-ench and American 
flags were exchanged. 



206 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

after a simple ceremony of delivering the keys, all 
walked out on the balcony. The French flag was 
lowered to half-mast and the stars and stripes raised 
to the same point. While they remained there, a 
salute was fired. Then the United States flag slowly 
mounted to the top of the staff, and the French flag 
descended, to be caught by a sergeant-major and 
wrapped about his body. In that way it was carried 
to Laussat, escorted by fifty old French soldiers of the 
city who had kept voluntary guard during the period 
it was floated. In March, United States troops under 
Captain Goddard crossed the Mississippi from Cahokia 
to St. Louis, and the French commandant delivered 
the upper part of Louisiana to its new owners. The 
transfer of the Louisiana country was one of the few 
voluntary surrenders of dominion in the world's his- 
tory. It was the final exit of France from the 
American continent. 

It was also the beginning of territorial expansion in 
the history of the United States. New questions of 
administration, citizenship, and equity would arise 
and must be met. External absorption of racial 
elements must now be added to internal amalgama- 
tion. "Cheers and huzzas" from the Americans 
present had greeted the stars and stripes in the new 
land; but "tears and lamentation" came from the 
better class of the French. The masses were heedless. 
They were inexperienced in self-government. It had 
come by chance and not by demand. President 
Jefferson therefore found ' ' but one opinion as ifo the 
necessity of shutting up the country for some time," 
although the treaty promised statehood as soon as 



I 



TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 207 



possible. Such 23romises have always been made by 
sentiment ; they are interpreted by common sense. 
Back of any fine declarations about the equality of 
men lies the stubborn requirement of the fitness of 
men. Congress 
therefore divided 
Louisiana into two 
territories along 
the present south- 
ern boundary of 
Arkansas, with 
capitals at New 
Orleans and at St. 
Louis. To the first 
the name of ' ' Ter- 
ritory of Orleans " 
was given, and 
a government 
framed which did 
not differ in form 
from that first 
given to the North- 
west Territory. 
There was no home 
rule in it. The 

upper part OI tne convext of thk ursulixe xuxs, nkw orlkaxs 

p u r c h a s e w a s 

made into the " District of Louisiana" and annexed 
to the Territory of Indiana, whose capital was at dis- 
tant Vincennes. 

In thus broadly interpreting " as soon as p)Ossible" 
for statehood for the Louisianians, Congress was hop- 




208 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ing that the immigration of Americans would soon 
warrant the beginnings of self-government as in the 
Northwest Territory. In the meantime some friction 
might be expected. The Americans were Protestants 
and the new subjects Roman Catholic. Over half the 
Ursuline nuns left New Orleans for Cuba, through 
fear tliat their property was to be confiscated, 
although Jefferson wrote them an assuring letter. 
The wealthier and better class of French resented the 
intrusion of the "barbarian" Americans, with their 
leveling ideas so destructive to caste. They com- 
plained of the insolence of the voluntary patrol and 
the outrages of the troops who pulled down their 
revolutionary handbills. The Spanish officials re- 
mained in the city fostering these troubles until 
ordered to leave. In a duel, the secretary of Governor 
Claiborne, his brother-in-law, w^as killed. The slaves 
brought in with the Americans were called ^^coquins^^ 
(^^ascals) by the Louisiana slaves. The latter thought 
that the independence and equality guaranteed by 
the United States meant their freedom and they fre- 
quently threatened insurrection. 

Governor Claiborne was well meaning, but awk- 
ward and unfitted for his responsible position. 
General Wilkinson was flighty, intemperate, foolish, 
and dishonest in his avarice. Neither man could 
speak Spanish or French. The offices were filled by 
a host of relatives and petty politicians hungering for 
a government salary. Small wonder that the four 
French members of the Council appointed by Jeffer- 
son refused to serve.* 
^ Fortunately their commission's had been sent in blank from 



TAKING POSSESSION OF THE NEW TERRITORY 209 

On tlie other hand, the Louisianians had been so 
long accustomed to evading the revenue laws, that it 
seemed impossible to break up the practice of smug- 
gling. Public sentiment rather approved of it. Duties 
liad always been collected by a foreign government, and 
if any surplus had remained above expenses it would 
have been spent in a foreign country. The French 
clung also to the idea of an undivided estate descending 
to the eldest son. Tlie American custom of giving 
each child a share was a grievous innovation. 

The inhabitants of the Territory of Orleans or, 
as they persisted in calling it, Louisiana, therefore 
sent a protest to the ensuing Congress, Decem- 
ber, 1804. They complained of tlie injustice of being 
held without self-government, although the treaty 
had i^romised statehood, and although just across 
tlie river they saw fewer people and less civiliza- 
tion in the Territory of Mississippi with privileges of 
a local legislature.^ Since the provisional government 
for the Orleans Territory had been limited to one 
year, Congress, in 1805, in response to this petition, 

Washington because their given names had not been known. 
Claiborne at once filled in the blanks with names of Americans in 
New Orleans and the beginnings of government were only slightly 
delayed. A pamphlet in the Library of Congress entitled "A faith- 
ful Picture of the Political Situation at New Orleans, 1807,'' says 
that Wilkinson and Claiborne charged the government $6,600 per 
year for their table expenses, including 11,480 " Spanish segars. " 
The reading of their accounts in the House of Representatives was 
objected to because they must then be printed and would occupy 
too mucli space. Wilkinson is charged by another writer \%'ith 
failing to account for 56,116 Spanish milled dollars. 

^ This petition was said to represent two thousand heads of fam- 
ilif.'S and was carried to Washington by Sauve, Derbigny, and 
De'-.r.i'ehen, three French residents of New Orleans. It was largely 
the composition of Edward Livingston, of New York, who as United 
States attorney had become indebted to the government and had 
gone to Louisiana to recoup his fortunes. 



210 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

advanced the territory to the first grade, whicli per- 
mitted a local legislature. But the i^eople had to 
wait until 1812 for statehood and the restoration of 
their former name ' ' Louisiana. ' ' 

No less^atisfiecl were the inhabitants of the upper 
portion of the purchase which had been tacked on to 
the Territory of Indiana. In September, 1804, dele- 
gates from New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, Ste. Gene- 
vieve, St. Louis^andits Dex^endencies, and St. Charles 
and its Dependencies, embracing several American 
immigrants, assembled at St. Louis and sent a strong 
protest to Congress at their " entire privation of some 
of their dearest rights. " They complained that they 
were one hundred and sixty-five miles from their seat 
of government Vincennes (now Indiana) ; that there 
was not a house on the way ; that the roads were 
often impassable from snow and ice ; that the titles to 
their lands were rendered uncertain by the provisions 
for their government ; and that the troublesome 
Indians were to be transplanted across the river into 
their midst. " Good God! a colony of Indians to main- 
tain and protect us in our liberties and properties." 

This appeal caused Congress to change them from 
the District to the Territory of Louisiana with resi- 
dent governor, secretary, and judges. In 1812 when 
the name "Louisiana" was taken from them and 
restored to the southern part of the purchase, they 
were made into the Territory of Missouri and given a 
local legislature. Seven years later, the portion just 
north of the state of Louisiana was made into the Ter- 
ritory of Arkansas and the iDopulous section north of 
it became the state of Missouri in 1821. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ROUNDING OUT THE GULF POSSESSIONS 

The interior of the land acquired through the 
Louisiana purchase was unknown. The Spanish had 
crossed the continent in the southern part, and Mac- 
kenzie ^ had reached the Pacific thrc^igh wdiat is now 
Manitoba and British Columbia. ^On the Pacific 
coast between these places of crossing, Captain 
Robert Gray ,^ a Boston trader, had entered the mouth of 





MKn.VT, STRUCK FOR THK VOYAGK OF THK '• C 



a broad river which he named the " Columbia," from 
one of his vessels. This discovery gave a kind of 

^ Sir Alexander Mackenzie emigrated from England to Canada 

and engaged in the fur trade. In 1789 he discovered the lake 

which now bears his name, and in 1793 he reached the Pacific 

Ocean. 

-Captain Gray, in making this voyage in 1790, returned by way 

Canton and the Cape of Good Hope, and was the first man who 

•rried the American flag around the globe. The importance of his 

scovery of the Columbia river will appear in the dispute with 

M gland over the Oregon country as described later. 

211 



212 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

American claim to the middle portion of the Pacific 
coast. Even before the purchase of Louisiana, Presi- 
dent Jefferson appointed his secretary, Meriwether 
Lewis, to organize a western exploring party, for 
which Congress made an appropriation. Jefferson 
reasoned, because of the muddy waters of the Mis- 
souri, that its head must be far from the clear Missis- 
sippi, and might be near the source of the Columbia. 
In 1804 a party of forty-five men, commanded by 
Lewis and CaT^oiin Clark, started up the Missouri 
and reached a point near what is now Bismarck, 
South Dakota, having come 1,600 miles at the aver- 
age rate of nine miles per day. Here they wintered ; 
in the spring the}^ went forward to the Yellowstone ; 
and in two months they had reached the Rocky 
Mountains. Subsisting on horses and dogs, they 
crossed the mountains, and in October embarked on 
the Columbia in logs hollowed by burning. They 
reached the Pacific in November, having covered 
4,134 miles. Remaining one winter on the Columbia, 
they started on their return and, after many hard- 
ships in crossing the mountains, reached St. Louis 
after an absence of two years and four months.^ 

Zebulon Pike and others continued the explorations 
until the topography, climate, and natural resources 
of the acquired territory had been fulh^ investigated. 

^ Lewis was a Virginian, captain in the army, secretary to the 
president, and had charge of the scientific observations on the expe- 
dition. He committed suicide a few years after his return. 
William Clark was the brother of George Rogers Clark. Having 
retired from the army, he was living at St. Louis at the time of 
his appointment as military leader of the expedition. He was 
afterward Governor of the Territory of Missouri. The narrative of 
the Lewis and Clark expedition in two volumes has passed through 
several editions and is widelv read. 



ROUNDING OUT THE GULF POSSESSIONS 213 

It was learned that the Rockies were a continuation 
of the Andes ; that the Louisiana country was not all 
dense woods ; that some of it was badl}^ watered, and 
hence had poor means of intercourse ; that there were 
vast tracts of sliifting sands ; and that no Welsh- 
Indians could be found. 

But the imagination of hunters was fired by stories 
of the grizzly, the antelope, tlie grosse come (big 
horn), elk, prairie-dogs, alligators, and chameleons. 
Naturalists found one hundred and fifty undescribed 
plants and twenty unknown genera. The mock 
orange growing on the Osage river furnished the 
Indians with war clubs and bows. Lead, salt, copper, 
iron, and coalmines had ])een opened by the invading 
white men and deposits of gold, silver, and "platena" 
were said to exist. The productiveness of the soil 
was shown in the luxuriant vegetation. Riches and 
a life of ease were supposed to await the emigrant. 

No one knew where the western boundary of this 
wonderful country of " Louisiana" ran. But l>eyond 
it lay Mexico— old Spanish Mexico— to which still 
clung the enticing legends of Montezuma days. The 
Spanish grasp was everywhere relaxing; the Mex- 
icans were ripe for a revolt ; Napoleon had seized the 
mother country ; ambitious men in America began to 
dream of independent empires to arise on the Spanish 
ruins beyond Louisiana. The positions of Santa Fe, 
Albuquerque, Chihuahua, and New Orleans were 
studied as strategic bases. The Gulf regions swarmed 
with filibustering expeditions. Even sober-minded 
New Englanders were infected, and it was said that 
\ lexander Hamilton had an appointment witli some 



214 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

of them at the time of his death to consult on this sub- 
ject/ His mortal enemy, Aaron Burr, was also desirous 
of making an attempt on the Spanish southwest. The 
meteoric career of Napoleon seemed to have turned 
the heads of half the great men in the United States. 
Burr was fascinating, fearless, and inventive, but 
he lacked moral stamina and was decidedly visionary. 
He believed that every man had his price, and that 
the end always justified the means. Uniting with 
Blennerhassett,^ Burr purchased a tract of land in 
Louisiana on the Red river, originally granted by the 
king of Spain to Baron Bastrop. For the eight 
thousand acres he engaged to pay forty thousand 
dollars. He planned to divide it into farms of one 
hundred acres each and to take thither a colony from 
the western portion of the United States. Undoubt- 
edly Burr wanted to make it a base for an expedition 
against some part of the adjacent Spanish dominions. 
That he intended to separate the Avestern portion of 
the United States from the rest was suspected, but 
could not be proven. Two witnesses only could be 
found to testify that he had said as much, and one 
was Wilkinson, whose betrayal of Burr to President 



^ It should be said that Hamilton's son, J. C. Hamilton, repudi- 
ates this statement in his "Life and Works of Alexander Ham- 
ilton." 

^Harman Blennerhassett was a wealthy young Irishman who, 
with his beautiful wife, migrated to Virginia, where he purchased 
180 acres of land, including an island in the Ohio River. The 
romantic natures of the couple found the island an ideal spot for 
a home. The extensive building, with its magnificent furniture, 
its musical instruments, and its library of several thousand vol- 
umes, furnished a strong contrast to the frontier dwellings of those 
days and attracted wide attention. Burr first landed on the island 
by accident during a trip down the river. 



ROUNDING OUT THE GULF POSSESSIONS 215 

Jefferson places him beneath the contempt of those 
believing in honor, even among conspirators. 

Burr held communication as did others with rep- 
resentatives of foreign countries concerning the weak 
allegiance of the western country. America had 
become the plotting ground for Europeans. The air 
was rife with rumors. It was an easy matter to bring 
a man to trial for treason, but it was too late to break 
the continent along the Alleghanies. The increased 
territory strengthened rather than weakened the gov- 
ernment, since the westerners had nothing but grati- 
tude for the agency, which had not only gained for 
them the Mississippi, but homes and prospects be- 
yond it.^ 

In preparing to despoil the Spaniard on the western 
side of Louisiana, Burr was simply anticipating 
future events, although in the wrong quarter. Loui- 
siana, like a wedge, cut the Spanisli Gulf possessions 
into two parts, and Spain must give way, but the 
pressure from the American advance was to come 
upon the eastern or Florida portion first. The front 
line of adventurers and traders had followed the 
Spaniards as they vacated the disputed strip after the 
treaty of 1795, and now crossed even the thirty-first 
degree line, the acknowledged boundary, to settle in 

^ The charge of treason in a republic is so odious that few of the 
leaders on the Burr expedition escaped its blight. Burr was ostra- 
cised socially, became a wanderer abroad, and died a pensioner 
on another. The charge against the others was nullified by Burr's 
acquittal. Swartout became a wealthy merchant of New York, but 
Dr. Bollman returned to Europe. Blennerhassett died in England, 
a pensioner on his sister, and his wife was buried by the Sisters of 
Charity in New York in 1842. She had a claim pending before 
Congress at the time for damages done by the militia when they 
were trying to stop the expedition of Burr. 



216 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Spanish territory about Baton Rouge and along the 
Amita river. Smuggling was inevitable. Runaway 
slaves were harbored by the Spanish and Indians. 
A rumor was circulated among the invading Amer- 
icans that Napoleon intending seizing the Floridas, 
and they resolved to act. In 1810 they met at 
Buhler's Plains, near Baton Rouge, under the sanc- 
tion of the Spanish governor, to consider "certain 




THE GRADUAL OCCUPATION OF THE FLOKIDAS = 



reforms in government." The outsider had again 
invited himself to the family table. Soon after it 
was claimed that the Spanish governor was treacher- 
ous, and another convention was called and organized 
the "Free and Independent Territory of West 
Florida," to extend from tlie Island of New Orleans 
to the Pearl river. In two months, under its Amer- 
ican governor, the revolutionary state drove out the 

*From the Johns Hopkins University Studies, series xiv., No. 5. 



ROUNDING OUT THE GULF POSSESSIONS 217 

Spanish governor and applied to the United States for 
annexation. 

To avoid such open land-grabbing, President Madi- 
son refused to recognize the impetuous petitioners, 
but resolved to end the long contention with Spain 
over the eastern limits of Louisiana by taking posses- 
sion of at least a portion of tlie American claim/ He 
ordered Governor Claiborne to extend the authority of 
the Territory of Orleans eastward to the river Perdido, 
" to insure tranquillity and security of our adjoining 
territories." In his i)i'oclamation Madison insisted 
that this action did not preclude " a fair and friendly 
negotiation and adjustment " of the case with Spain, 
but in his message to Congress he divined the natural 
trend of events by referring to ' ' the people thus 
brought into the bosom of the American people." It 
was the story to be repeated so many times. 
American interests had adventured into foreign lands 
and demanded that the flag follow and protect them. 
This revolting part of West Florida, lying between 
the Island of New Orleans and the Pearl, remained 
attached to Louisiana, and on the modern map pro- 
jects into Mississippi. It is known locally as "the 
Louisiana parishes." In 1812 the jurisdiction of the 
governor of the Territory of Georgia was extended 

^ The United States had tried ever since the purchase of Louisi- 
ana to get this troublesome question of boundaries settled with 
Spain. France refused to render any satisfactory opinion upon 
what she had understood to be the extent of Louisiana when it had 
been transferred to her. The United States offered to limit either 
the eastern or western extent, although many believed she should 
claim from the Perdido to the Rio Grande. Frequently the United 
States offered to buy the disputed portions, but Spain refused to 
sell, hinting that these offers showed the hollo wness of tlie Louisi- 
ana purchase claim to tlie entire region. 



218 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

over the region between tlie Pearl and the Perdido, 
commonly known as "the Mobile district." The 
next year it was garrisoned by order of President 
Madison and added to the territory of Mississippi. 

Spain, France, and England each protested against 
this extension of territory, based on one side of a 
claim and on rumors. England has a fondness for 
being in at the death. She was suspected of cherish- 
ing a project during the ensuing War of 1812 for 
using East Florida (now the state of Florida) as a 
base of operations against the United States, and 
General Jackson was ordered to anticipate her.^ His 
occupation was but temporary, yet it made it easier 
for President Monroe, after the close of the war, to 
order him to reenter and restore order. East Florida 
had fallen almost into anarchy. Spain's control was 
powerless ; pirates thronged the coasts ; runaway 
slaves from the neighboring states found a refuge ; 
and the Indians and white refugees formed frequent 
marauding expeditions into the adjacent states. 
Jackson restored order in the true Jackson way by 
seizing Pensacola and St. Marks, and hanging 
Englishmen on general suspicion.^ Spain at length 
yielded to the inevitable. In 1819 the Spanish min- 

' In warning the English away from Florida, Madison suggested 
to Congress the propriety of advising them that the United States 
"could not see without serious inquietude any part of a neighbor- 
ing territory in which they have in different respects so deep and 
so just a concern pass from the hands of Spain into those of any 
other foreign power." It is the connecting link in the growth of 
the "Monroe doctrine" between Louisiana and the Holy Alliance 
warning. 

" Alexander Arbuthnot, a Scotch trader, and Robert Armbrister, 
an English lieutenant, were hanged by Jackson for inciting the 
Indians in Florida against the Americans. This expedition of Jack- 
son is sometimes called the first Seminole war. 



ROUNDING OUT THE GULF POSSESSIONS 



219 



ister, although protesting that Louisiana had not 
included either of the Floridas, agreed with Secretary 
of State Adams to give up all titles to both of them, 
in consideration of limiting Louisiana to the Sabine 
river on the west and the payment by the United 
States of five million dollars, old damage claims of 
Americans upon Spain. The two Floridas added to 
the United States almost sixty thousand square miles 
of territory, but they conferred a much greater benefit 
in freeing her from a troublesome neighbor and in 
rounding out her possessions to natural limits. 

The commissioners and surveyors met, as provided 
in the treaty, and ran the stair-step western boundary 
between the United States and Spain. It ran up the 
Sabine to the thirty-second degree of latitude ; thence 
due north to the Red river and up that stream to the 
one-hundredth degree of 4fj*itude ; thence north to the 
Arkansas and to its source and by the forty-second 
parallel to the Pacific. It could not long limit the 
natural western expansion. 




KKSri/rS <)K FIRST KXPANSIOX 



CHAPTER XIX 

ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 

The French had surrounded tlie English in colonial 
days by means of the Mississippi and the Great 
Lakes. The advancing Americans now found on 
their frontier a fringe of French population extending 
in a great crescent from Indiana to Louisiana. These 
people must be assimilated, expelled, or designedly 
annihilated. The American people, made up of 
heterogenous constituents, would not be likely to insist 
upon the expulsion of any foreign element. Annihi- 
lation would be abhorrent to them. Assimilation 
seemed to be the natural course. It might mean 
ultimate race annihilation, but it would not be indi- 
vidual murder. 

The aristocratic class of French in New Orleans 
seemed to see such a fate. Many left after the trans- 
fer to the United States and the rest maintained a 
strict non-intercourse. The middle class early afhli- 
ated with Americans, and adopted their business 
methods. The lower class continued to be a foreign 
element. But Louisiana was soon Americanized by 
tlie thousands drawn thither through the love of 
adventure and by the stories and descriptions of the 
picturesque city of New Orleans, 

Returned travelers told of the eternal summer 
climate where people sat under bowers of roses ; 
where one might converse with vivacious French 

220 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 221 




beauties under proper chaperon age ; where beautiful 
octoroons peeped from unexpected latticed windows 
or balconies. The people of the American states heard 
with amazement the descriptions of the river, higher 
than the city, and prevented from sweeping it away 
by artificial banks ; 
of the break or 
crevasse in this 
levee which could 
be closed only by 
e X t r a o rdinary ef- 
forts ; of the ab- 
sence of wells and 
springs; of the 
drinking water 
drained from the 
roofs ; of the cemeteries above ground ; of the hermit 
crabs and the horned toads. 

New Orleans was three-quarters of a century old, 
but devoid of the improvements characteristic of even 
humble villages toward the north. Its mixed racial 
population had been recruited by aimless adven- 
turers, bandits, slaves, trappers, squaws, soldiers, and 
only saved from absolute viciousness by the wives of 
the officers and the French and Spanish wealthy 
traders. The Spanish government had encouraged 
such impossibilities as buffalo wool manufacture and 
pearl fisheries, but had neglected practical means of 
revenue. There were taxes on government salaries, 
offices, legacies, liquor selling, shipping, exports, and 
imports, but the laws were not enforced. Hence 
there was often a deficit in the expenses of the local 



222 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

government and no money was left for improving the 
city. Through the levees the water percolated, to be 
carried off in open ditches to neighboring swamps. 
The banquettes, as the sidewalks were called, were 
single planks laid in the mud. In wet weather parts 
of the city became lakes. There were no carriages, 
and the fine ladies walked to balls, preceded by a 
slave with a lantern, and followed by another carry- 





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FRENCH AXn AMERICAXS IX THK ILLIXOIS COUXTRY 



ing the satin slippers. The danger of fever or pesti- 
lence was ever present to the fifty thousand people 
living in and around New Orleans. 

The upper Louisiana territory contained some ten 
thousand inhabitants. Of these, four thousand were 
French, five thousand Americans, and one thousand 
blacks. This upper country sent down annually a 
hundred thousand dollars' worth of lead and skins, 
although the most valuable furs were smuggled over 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 223 

to English Canada, where they brought higher prices. 
St. Louis consisted of about one hundred and sixty 
houses on streets parallel to the river, and built for 
tlie most part of logs set upright and the tops joined 
together. The better houses were of stone, sur- 
rounded by gardens and enclosed by whitewashed 
stone walls. Back of the houses stood the fort on a 
slight elevation, and still farther back, according to 



-u 






the French custom, was the common pasture land. 
It was said that newly arrived Parisians would 
journey up the river until they could see the white 
palisades skirting the opposite shore and then imagine 
themselves once more in sight of their beloved city- 
They were disappointed by the crude appearance of 
St. Louis. The only pretentious house was that built 
by Chouteau in 1764. The excavating had been done 



224 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



by squaws using corn hoes. The stone was trans- 
ported on a "mud sled." The flooring had been 
brought from Fort Chartres when that outpost was 
abandoned. 

AVhen St. Louis first celebrated the fourth day of 
July, a procession of Americans and French from the 
settlements in the Great American Bottom ^ crossed to 
give the new citizens a welcome into the republic. 
Their side of the river had been known as the 
"Illinois country," and that on the west as "the 

Spanish country." 
J It was now all 

"American coun- 
try." The United 
States protected 
its new French cit- 
izens in their prop- 
e r t y and their 
rights, but it could 
not prevent their 
being slowly overcome in competition with the invad- 
ing Americans.^ Tlie French on both sides of the 




i 1 



»» iirfiif'f 



rH()UTK\U \\ 




^ The Great American Bottom extended back about five miles 
along the Mississippi river on the Illinois side for a distance of about 
eighty miles. It was an exceedingly fertile, alluvial soil, and 
within it were located the French towns fromKaskaskiatoCahokia. 
It contained manj^ ancient earth works or ''Indian mounds."" 

-The United States gave to each head of a family residing in the 
Illinois country in 1788, forty acres of public lands, a share of the 
common lands when the}^ were divided, and all lands which had 
been acquired except from the Indians. The titles to the latter were 
not considered valid. The Frenchmen had too many holy days and 
blessing of bells to observe, and too many cakes to distribute and 
calls to make to spend much time in farming. The American mis- 
sionaries were surprised to see them attend church Sunday morning 
and a public dance Sunday evening. 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 225 

river clung to their habit of living in villages. They 
were bound to it by tradition, by desire for company 
and pleasure, and by the church. The American 
settlers dwelt on their farms. The French did not 
educate their children as did the Americans, and by 
nature they were not so provident. A few French 
families came from the disastrous experiment at 
Gallipolis, Ohio,^ but the Americans poured in by 




OLD KASKASKTA 



thousands. Soon certain former French villages did 
not contain one family of pure French blood. New 
Design, Horse Prairie Town, and Goshen sprang ui) 
among the French villages in Illinois, although old 
Kaskaskia, where the land office had been opened 
in 1804, became the capital of the territory of Illinois 

1 Described in chapter XII. 

*From a copy of "Wild's Valley of the Mississippi," Chicago 
Historical Society. Also the view of Cahokia, page 230. 



226 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



in 1809. The newcomers were almost entirely from 
the southern states, although a few Pennsylvanians 
came into southern Indiana. Those settlers who came 
down the Ohio river disembarked at Fort Massac (com- 
monly called Fort Massacre), and crossed to the 
American Bottom or to Cape Girardeau by the gov- 
ernment road. At intervals along this road the dis- 
tances to the termini were cut into trees and the 
figures painted red. The migrants fi'om Kentucky 
and Tennessee crossed the river at Lusk's Ferry, from 
which a road led over the prairies to the Bottom. 

Prospective set- 



^^"'■^ 







tiers in the n e w 
territory of In- 



diana turned aside 
at the mouth of 
the Wabash to as- 
cend that stream 
to the French town 
of St. Vincents, 
soon changed into 
Vincennes. They 
saw the little mis- 
sion chapel still standing in which the French had 
assembled when being addressed by George Rogers 
Clark. Most of the old blockhouse had disappeared. 
The Americans at once opened stores to compete with 
the little shops of the French. Goods were bought at 
Louisville to which market they had been brought 
from New Orleans. Salt made on the Kanawha sold 



ST. X4VIKK S eH\l'KL. VIM 



* From English's "Conquest of the Northwest," by courtesy of 
the Bowen-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 227 

at two dollars per bushel, while the inferior kind 
made at the Shawneetown salines brought fifty cents 
less. A good supply w^as always at hand save occa- 
sionally when continued rains brought high waters 
which rendered boating impossible. At such times 
salt was scarce at five dollars a bushel, and other 
imported goods rose in price accordingly. 

The Wabash was considered a good highwa}', being 
navigable over four hundred miles, and from its head- 
waters forming an easy portage of nine miles to the 
Miami of the Lakes (now Maumee). Below Vincennes 
were some rapids and for this reason, as well as to 
avoid the tedious up-river journey, many emigrants 
disembarked at Evansville and walked the fifty-six 
miles to Vincennes. 

Some pioneers passed into the " new purchase," but 
found that the Canadian volunteers in the war of 1812 
had been given a choice of locating their bounty lands 
in any part of its three million acres. They had just 
crossed the grant given to the French settlers at Vin- 
cennes, a grant embracing the land betAveen the 
Wabash and the White River, and it seemed as if the 
government had left but small choice to its own con- 
stituents. Fort Harrison protected the settlers on the 
great prairie, named by the French " Terre Haute," or 
high land. In 1817 a town was laid out near the fort 
and was so well advertised that 2,100 lots were sold 
the first day. Some called this ' ' city in the wilder- 
ness " Terre Haute ; others translated it to Highlands. 

At the junction of the streams forming the Wabash 
stood the fort erected by Wayne after the famous battle 
of the Fallen Timbers and named for him. About 



228 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



it there gradually grew up a settlement. Still farther 
north was the old portage between the St. Joseph and 
Kankakee rivers and at the great " south bend" in 
the former river was established the settlement bear- 
ing that name. 
Newcomers took 
an interest in 
walking over the 
four miles be- 
tween the two 
rivers, easily fol- 
lowing the old 
portage path used 
by so many voy- 
acrers since La 
Salle, Hennepin, 
Tonty, and others 
first adventured 
upon it. 

Indiana was settled largely by Kentuckians who 
were Virginians and Carolinians once removed. 
Pennsylvania was represented to some extent. The 
New England element was barred by the great swamp 
extending to the west of Lake Erie, and therefore 
passed around by Lakes Huron and Michigan to 
people northern Illinois. 

The Americans who thus came to mingle with the 
French were puzzled by the names which the latter 
had bestowed on streams and places, and were often 
amused when a name had been translated, to find that 
it recalled some simple incident. Thus at a camp on 
the Mississippi, a shortage of provisions gave rise to 




HEAD OF ST. JOSEPH PORTAGE 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 229 

the name " Pain Court " (short food) ; but the place 
was later renamed in honor of King St. Louis. Fort 
Creve-Coeur (broken heart) recalled the story of La 
Salle, who learned at that point of the misfortunes 
which had overtaken his expedition. 

Vide Poche (empty pocket) might signify either 
an inlet of water or it might commemorate the adven- 
ture of some impecunious wayfarer. Prairie du 
Chien (prairie of dogs) recalled the " dog " tribe of 
Fox Indians. Some French names were transformed 
or translated by the incoming Americans. La Riviere 
au Vase was rendered into Muddy Eiver ; Port 
des Morts became Death's Door ; Roche Jaune was 
turned into Yellowstone. Bois Brlil^ (Burnt Woods) 
grew into Bob Ruby; Au Post to 0-Pose ; Bonne 
Passe (good crossing) to Bonpas or Bumpass ; Wabash 
to Way-bosh ; and Terre Haute (high land) prairie, 
into Tar Holt. 

The Americans were much amused to see the 
French farmers using a stick tied across the horns of 
their oxen instead of a yoke. The animals seemed to 
push instead of draw their burden. The horses were 
always driven tandem. The caleche or calash, with its 
top removed and a broad platform built upon it, was 
used for a hay wagon during the week. On Sunday the 
body was replaced, or chairs were put upon the plat- 
form, and the family drove out in style. The Ameri- 
cans did not adopt the caleche as a vehicle, but they 
learned to "shivaree." This was an American cor- 
ruption of the French word charivari, as the American 
practice is an abuse of the French custom. The 
French used it solely to show disapproval of a mismatch ; 



230 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the Americans used it as an annoyance to all newly 
married couples. On the bluffs below St. Louis the 
Americans found a French shot manufactory where 
the molten lead was drop]3ed from a sieve down a 
tower into water. The French also had floating tin- 
shops to supply the river region w^ith utensils. 

The French in turn learned to use an American 
churn instead of shaking cream in a bottle or beating 



^m^^L^ 







OLD CAHOKIA 



it wath a spoon. They also discarded their w^ooden 
plow for an iron one, and substituted a band or piston 
mill for the tedious hand mill.^ The Americans soon 
preempted all the available rapids and harnessed them 
to mills. In order to obtain a water supply in the dry 

1 A piston mill was composed of a hoi^per in which a heavy weight 
was used to crush the grain. The weight was raised by fastening 
it to one end of a balanced pole. A hand mill consisted of two mill- 
stones, one being turned upon the other by hand. The corn was 
fed into a hole in the upper stone. The band mill had a twisted 
rawhide band or rope running from the upper stone to a larger 
wheel by which a greater speed of rotation was obtained. 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 231 

season they constructed a " dam " across the stream. 
This interfered with navigation, and bloodshed and 
lawsuits often followed the ' ' running " of a mill dam 
by a heavily loaded boat. 

The first Americans in Illinois settled along the rich 
river bottoms of the Mississippi to become '' petits 
paysons " (small farmers), as their French neighbors 
called them. They were unthrifty and quarrelsome, 
boasting that they were born of the original breed 
of alligator, horse, and snapj^ing turtle. Their 
favorite practice of fighting was " gouging" the eye 
with the thumb after entwining the fingers in the 
hair of the opponent. They gave an ill repute to the 
Mississippi region, and from them the Illinois 
''regulators" and kindred bands were recruited, 
as described later in connection with the Mormons. 
Some of the better class brought their slaves with 
them, although contrary to the Ordinance of 1787. 
This caused a violent contest when the territory be- 
came a state and the constitutional prohibition of 
slavery was secured only by a strong effort. Likewise 
in Indiana, the southern element petitioned Congress 
to abrogate the anti-slavery provision in the old Ordi- 
nance and again attempted in vain to perpetuate 
slavery when a constitution w^as formed. 

Both French and English along the Mississippi 
engaged in the New Orleans flat-boat trade. " When 
they had a surplus of bacon, flour and venison, they 
would load up a flat-boat and take it to New Orleans. 
It took four or five months to make the trip and they 
got very little for their load. It was a solemn sight 
to see a boat start off. The people would assemble on 



232 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the bank of the river and bid their friends farewell. 
It was very uncertain whether they would ever see 
them again for they were going into a dead, sickly 
place and they had to walk all tlie way back through 
an Indian country. " ^ Sometimes these flat-boat men 
seeking employment floated from one shipping place 
to another on a rude raft constructed by themselves. 




FROLICS OF FLAT-BOAT MEX (FROM AX OLIJ PRIXTI 



Hoisting an appropriate flag, they sat upon their boxes 
of provisions or danced to the accompaniment of the 
ever-present violin, while being carried along by the 
current. They formed a favorite subject for illustra- 
tion in the early western magazines. 

Some of these Americans purchased an equipment 
of guns, blankets, stroud, flints, powder, bullets, 

^From the reminiscences of Capt. Bacon in Pi erson's "Jefferson 
at Monticello." 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 233 



knives, and paints and followed the French coureurs de 
bois (wood rangers) in their light bircli canoes over 
the western waters. These boats were easily carried 
over portages and readily patched when torn. At the 
trading stations such as Peoria (now Illinois) , St. 
Joseph (now Michigan) , Green Bay (now Wisconsin), 




ON THK ST. JOSEPH-KANKAKEE PORTAGE * 

Mackinac, and Detroit, these traders would congregate 
at the close of the season to indulge in high carnival. 
From the x)osts the skins were carried to market in 
" Mackinaw " boats, some forty feet long, with sharp 
ends and a flat bottom. 

* Through courtesy of Mr. George A. Baker, of the Northern 
Indiana Historical Society. 



234 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

This French frontier contained comparatively no 
Spanish, although much of it had been under Spanish 
control. The Spaniard's idea of colonization never 
included a foreign residence for himself, but simply 
administration by himself. Even in a kind of public 
school in New Orleans the French language had been 
used. 

The addition of the French gave a new direction to 
the distribution of population in the United States. 
It is customary to consider the line of two or more 
persons to the square mile as the front line of occu- 
pied territory. The westward advance of this line 
shows the westward expansion of the people. A few 
general laws may be deduced from a study of its 
movement : 

The line of least resistance lies usually along a 
stream, and little groups of people are formed at 
favorable points. 

A number of these scattered "islands" of peo^Dle 
along a stream often join each other and become an 
arm or tongue extending sometimes fifty miles from 
the main body. 

The joining of separated portions is not always 
along the apparently easiest line. Thus New Orleans 
became united with the northern portions not along 
the Mississippi, but along the Tombigbee through 
Alabama. 

Unoccupied spaces in the midst of populated regions 
may be accounted for by mountains, as in northern 
New York and western North Carolina; by swamps, 
as in northwestern Ohio and northern Indiana ; by 
hostile Indians, as in Georgia. 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 235 

The " bulging " of the line by one portion running 
ahead of the rest, will follow usually the direction first 
indicated. Thus the most prominent advance has 
been constantly near the thirty-ninth parallel of north 
latitude. This also is near the center of population. 
It is as if a river were running fastest in the middle 
and retarded by the banks on either side. But this 
pre-advance was due at first to the Potomac river 
route ; then to the early settlement of Kentucky and 
the course of the Ohio river ; then to the position of 
St. Louis as capital of northern Louisiana ; and 
finally to the lower part of the Missouri river, which 
furnished a westAvard route along the same general 
line. 

In 1790 the frontier crossed the Appalachian moun- 
tain system only in one long arm, which extended up 
the Potomac and embraced the region about Pitts- 
burg. It penetrated the mountains in western 
Virginia and along the Shenandoalh. The entire 
frontier was broken by many shorter extensions, 
making its length some 3,200 miles from Maine to 
Georgia. Across the mountains was a little patch in 
Kentucky and a smaller one in Tennessee.^ 

Tlie results of the southern accessions of territory 
began to show in the census of 1820. The frontier 
was increased to 4,100 miles, and the Tennessee 
population had united with Louisiana along the 
Toinbigbee river in what is now Alabama. Long 
arms ran up the navigable waters north of the Ohio 



^On this subject consult the first volume (Population) of the 
United States Census of 1880. It contains a number of interesting 
maps showing the advance of the frontier for each decade. 



236 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

and west of the Mississippi. The little spots along 
the Mississippi river indicated the advance of the line 
to that river during the next decade. There was an 
unoccupied region in northwestern Ohio caused by the 
Great Black Swamp. That low ground had also pre- 
vented migration from entering northern Indiana. 
Northern Illinois was as yet unoccupied, largely 



4^;: 





--4^ 



SCHOOLCRAFT'S CHICAGO IN 1821 



because of its inaccessibility. Few roads had been con- 
structed northward from the Ohio across the prairies. 
Travelers who came around by Lake Michigan crossed 
the portage from the southern end of the lake to the 
Illinois river. Here on the small stream known as 
the ** Chicago," ' a fort had been built in 1804, but it 
was burned and its inhabitants murdered by the 
Indians during the War of 1812. In 1816 the fort 

^The word "Shekago" is supposed to mean foul odor and to refer 
to the skunk cabbages growing wild along the banks of the stream. 
The portage is described by travelers in the spring time as the 
commingling of the waters^ of Lake Michigan with those of the 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FRONTIER FRENCH ELEMENT 237 

was rebuilt and served to invite settlers under its 
protection. But means of travel were still inadequate 
and few came. Indeed, the two decades of rest from 
territorial expansion, extending from the acquisition 
of Florida to that of Texas, were marked chiefly by 
improved means of transportation and the consequent 
filling up of this middle west. It furnishes an oppor- 
tunity to study the growth and effects of this transi- 
tory frontier. 

Desplaines, a tributary of the Illinois, The sarrounding covmtry 
was submerged in these floods. The Chicago "massacre" was one 
of the marked events in the history of the northwest. It is treated 
by all local historians. 



CHAPTER XX 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 

It is now possible to study not only the groAvth but 
the influence of the frontier in America since it has 

passed forever. The 
^ -r^ ^^. w-y higher civilization 

holds from ocean to 
"" . ' ocean. 

One of the foremost 
students of this pic- 
turesque feature of the 
past has summed up 
the influence it ex- 
erted on the growth of 
the federal union : ^ 

Its composite nationality has evolved a new type — the American. 

Its agricultural resources have made us industrially independent 
of Europe. 

It has brought a more liberal construction of the powers given to 
the general government by the constitution. 

The practice of erecting new states from the land occupied by it 
has placed a new value on representative government. 

It has fostered a nationalizing tendency in political parties. 

It has contributed largely to the growth of democracy. 

It has inspired continued missionary effort. 

It has produced a virile intellectual development in its compelling 
environment. 




Thi 



ever present question in the making of 



^ Professor Turner, of the University of Wisconsin, in the Report 
of the American Historical Association for 1898. 



338 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 239 




%^.^- 



KVOLUTION OF A WESTERN HOME* 



the frontier was that of transportation. If the 
American bison or buffalo ever roamed east of the 
Alleghany mountains, his patli or "trace" formed 
the basis of many In- 
dian trails, as it did 
west of the mountains. 
But the Indian could 

not always depend ,*,,,- *u-i,^^. 

upon these and was ^ .f\-- 

frequently obliged to 



locate new paths 

across portages and 

about obstructions to water routes. Tanned deerskin 

afforded clothing well adapted to contact with the 

bushes, although modern footwear would have been 

more suited to the making of a trail where it passed 

over stony ground. 

Following the trail of the Indian came the French 

coureuT de hois or the 
English trader seek- 
ing a traffic which re- 
fused to come to an 
established market. 
The trader was a 
transitory creature, 
and in no wise dis- 
turbed the primitive 
condition of the wilderness. But soon there came 
along the trail the hardy frontiersman, with his ax 
and his rifle. At the head of navigation on some 

* This illustration and the three following, taken from Turner's 
• ' Pioneer History, ' ' show the gradual growth of the home of a pioneer. 




I 




240 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Stream, perhaps where had stood an Indian wigwam, 
he built his log cabin, the nucleus of a later city. The 
woods which had known no harsher sound than the 

whistle of the arrow 
now ree'choed with the 
report of the rifle and 
the stroke of the ax. 
Upon the back of his 
one ]3ack-horse the 
squatter had brought 
his household effects, 
consisting of a few ar- 
ticles of clothing, a bed-quilt, a skillet, and a bag of 
corn-meal. The wife followed on foot, carrying the 
inevitable baby,^ while the elder sons, if the family 
was so fortunate, went ahead with ax and rifle. Or 
perhaps the family cow may have become for the 
nonce a beast of burden in addition to her duty as 
a food-producing ani- 
mal. If the family 
was especially pros- 
perous it owned a 
feather-bed. Choos- 
ing a spot adjacent to 
his cabin, the squatter 
cleared a little "truck 
patch," to supplement 

the main supply of food gained by hunting and 
fishing. 




^ Among pioneer traditions it is not unusual to hear of a woman 
walking from the seaboard to the middle west carrying a child in 
her arms. 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 241 

Soon the trail is widened by the ax of the next 
comer, the small farmer, with his wagon and few 
farming utensils. He has some knowledge of agricul- 
ture, a frugal and prudent spirit, and a title to the 
land. Perhaps he evicts the squatter, ^ enlarges his 
"truck patch" to a field, puts a floor in his cabin 
and glass in the windows. For the accommodation 
of travelers, this permanent resident places a rope 
ferry or a floating bridge across the river and adds 




A PLOATIXa BRIDOE 



lodging rooms to his cabin. Later he is joined by a 
blacksmith and wagon re23airer, a store-keeper, and a 
professional innkeeper. A village springs up at the 

^ The pioneer often voluntarily vacated his temporary home 
when the first wave of real settlers appeared. He complained if 
neighbors came within ten miles of him that he was being crowded, 
and ''broke for the high timber"" (micleared land) or "cleared out 
for the new purchase," as he termed it. Observers at the time 
claimed to have found men under fifty who had settled on fresh 
ground westwardly five and six times. 

* From the Massachusetts Magazine, September, 1792. 




242 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ferry. To the adjacent ''falls" in the river a crude 
water-wheel is harnessed or a series of rapids is 
dammed up to give the necessary water-power. Flour 
and lumber need be imported no longer. Instead, a 
small export trade in those commodities springs up. 

As civilization spreads, local self-government is 
organized under the guidance of the United States, 
and the countryside is erected into a county, with a 

"county seat" in the 
center of population. In 
order to reach this seat 
of local government, 
roads must be con- 
structed by grading to 
allow sufficient drainage ; 
bridges and culverts must span the water courses ; 
and the trees must be removed from each side to 
permit the sunshine to dry up the surface water. 
Guide-boards are needed at intersections of roads for 
the guidance of travelers in the sparsely settled coun- 
try. For these expenditures, public money becomes 
available through local taxation. Where money is 
scarce, equivalent labor on the highway is allowed to 
be substituted. 

With increased crojDs to market, come increased 
resources and an increased demand for better roads. 
The public highway is raised to a higher level and 
macadamized by covering it with gravel or some hard 
material. It is now a turnpike, commonly called a 
"pike." Where public money is insufficient to build 
turnpikes, local companies with private capital are 
authorized by law to construct them and to charge a 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 243 

uniform fee from all users of the road. The improve- 
ment thus becomes self-supporting and works a hard- 
ship on no one. 

A covered wagon with scanty springs and fre- 
quently no back to the seats traverses the turnpike 
between villages at stated intervals, carrying the 
United States mail and such passengers and freight 
as may chance to offer. As business increases, the 
wagon is exchanged for a stage or coach swung on 
leather straps and springs and the freight is relegated 




MODEL OF A COXESTOGA WAGON 



to a " Conestoga" wagon drawn by six powerful 
horses. Passengers are accommodated both inside 
and on top of the coach, and the baggage is carried 
in a " boot " at the back. 

Meanwhile the village at the head of navigation has 
become a small city. The pioneer farmer has removed 
to his farm or has been supplanted by the large farmer 
who comes with capital, the latest implements, and an 
enterprise utterly beyond the conception of his prede- 
cessor. Perhaps the farm lands are bought up by a 
syndicate or a large holder and an embryonic system 



244 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

of foreign landlordism arises. Steamboats ply upon 
the river, bringing new residents and their belongings. 
At the falls the crude water-wheel has been replaced 
by an improved turbine, or the water-power has been 
superseded by steam. • By means of a "race" or 
artificial channel, the water is conveyed to various 
parts of the city for power. The rope ferry is sup- 
planted hj a steam ferry or a bridge. Vessels pass 
about the falls through a canal by a series of locks. 





CANAL BOATS CROSSING THE MOUNTAIN.' 



The United States government built the canal and 
now dredges the river channel, removes sunken logs 
and "snags," and establishes lights at suitable points 
for the guidance of river pilots. It also issues an 
official chart showing the channels and depths of all 
navigable waters. 

A canal to connect the head of the river with the 
head of some stream on the otlier side of the water- 
shed is begun by private enterprise but encouraged 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 245 



The cargo of the canal -boat 



by gifts of hand and money from the national and 
state governments. Reservoirs to secure water for 
the canal are constructed on high levels. Where tlie 
watershed reaches too great a height for sufficient 
water, a system of " inclined planes," Svith station- 
ary engines is provided. 
is loaded upon 
cars and these 
are drawn up the 
tracks of the 
planes by endless 
ropes p a s s i n g 
over large wheels 
of an engine. 
The cars are then 
drawn by horses 
along the levels 

between the planes and are let down on the other side 
of the mountain to reload the canal-boats. The boat 
itself is sometimes built in sections, to be carried in 





^:^^^«av^^^2j 



^ There were many inclined planes projected and several built. 
The most famous was the Portage railroad over the Alleghany 
mountains, connecting the eastern and western Pennsylvania 
canals. It was thirty-six miles long and had five planes on each side. 
The summit was two thousand four hundred and ninety-one feet 
above tide- water. The "Pictorial Sketch Book of Pennsylvania" 
says: "Hitched to a little old rickety locomotive, . . . we are 
tugged, two or three miles, over a steep ascending grade, to the 
foot of the first inclined plane. Here the cars are attached to an 
endless wire rope, winding round large iron wheels, placed hori- 
zontally, at each end of the plane. When all is ready, a signal is 
given to the engineer at the head of the plane, who immediately 
sets the stationary steam-engine in motion, and the rope begins its 
accustomed travel. It is prevented from touching or dragging the 
ground by numerous little wooden wheels, which revolve rapidly 
whenever the rope falls low enough to touch them. The ascent is 
soon made, and the same process is repeated at each of the other 
planes." 



240 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

that way over the planes and reassembled on the other 
side. After many rumors, a steam locomotive draw- 
ing a train of cars steals in serpentine curves u^) the 
bank of tlie river to the city, whose evolution is 
described above, bringing promoters of vast enter- 
prises, extensive capital, an army of operatives, raw 
material, luxuries, the leisure class, the proletariat, 
palaces, and slums, and the cycle is complete. 

It is a far cry from the Indian wigwam to the com- 
fortable American home and fi'om the packhorse of 
the pioneer to the palatial railway train. But the 
transformation was accomplished through the expan- 
sion of the American people within two and a half 
centuries. In some places it required less than so 
many decades. With variations of degree and 
agencies employed, similar transformations have 
occurred in the prior history of civilization, but 
never before on such an extensive scale, in such a 
limited time, and with such excellence of comfort and 
economy. 

The Ohio valley presented in its unbroken stretch 
the best opportunity for these stages of evolution of 
the frontier, and here it inay l)e studied in its regular 
order. Two years before the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, Pelatiah Webster had predicted of what 
was then a wilderness : 

From the Alleghany mountains to the sources of the Missouri, 
five hundred miles west of the Mississippi, a strip one hundred and 
fifty miles wide are the finest lands and the most healthful climate 
in the universe, and naturally secure of the advantages of the 
most extensive inland navigation and will in time be the seat of a 
grand population in America, from whence the numerous legions 
must issue, that will give law to the whole land. These ideas are 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER 247 

indeed vast and will therefore, without any regard to their natural 
probability, be treated as chimerical ; but, if sagely weighed, must 
be allowed of great moment and importance. Another century 
will begin to realize tliem.^ 

Webster might have shortened his time to half a 
century and still have been within the limit of subse- 
quent realization. The rapid peopling of this region 
was due largely to the tide of European emigration 
which set in to America at the close of the Napoleonic 
wars. It is estimated that thirty thousand emigrants 
arrived in 1817, the larger portion from Ireland. At 
first the movement was toward Alabama, but it soon 
turned toward the Ohio and upper Mississippi val- 
leys."^ The newcomers settled generally among the 
native Americans, and most fortunately, since other- 
wise race amalgamation would have been delayed. 
Scattering settlements were attempted, like the Welsh 
in the "Welsh Hills" of Ohio, the Swiss at Vevay, 
Indiana, the English at Albion, Illinois, the Dutch 
at Holland, Michigan, and, later, the Germans 
and Scandinavians in various towns in Wisconsin. 
These segregations have always become thoroughly 
"Americanized" in time. 

The drain upon the population of Europe caused 
alarm, and steps were taken in some countries to 

' Pelatiah Webster, of Massachusetts, wrote on economic and 
political questions about the time of the Revolution. Some think 
he first suggested the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 

-In one year 97,736 passengers left Buffalo for the west. During 
another year ninety vessels reached Detroit, one carrying seven 
hundred people. The first stanza of a song circulated in the east- 
ern states to induce migration runs : 

Come, all ye Yankee farmers who wish to change your lot, 
Who've spunk enough to travel beyond your native spot, 
And leave behind the village where pa and ma do stay; 
Come, follow me and settle in Michigania. 



248 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

check it. When those who had come over sent back 
letters descriptive of the opportunities presented in 
their new homes, Cobbett^ and other writers tried to 
counteract their effect. Perhaps the most prominent 
of these attempts was made Later by Charles Dickens 
in dexncting the doleful experiences of " Martin 
Chuzzlewit " as an emigrant at Eden, on the Ohio 
river. The country looked " as if the waters of the 
deluge might have left it a week before," and as if it 
might be " tlie grim domains of Giant Despair." 
The boat "might have been old Charon's boat 
conveying melancholy shades to judgment." The 
animus of the writing is seen in the advice given by 
Bevan to Martin as he is returning, "Make your 
government more careful of its subjects when tliey 
roam abroad to live. Tell it what you know of emi- 
gration in your own case." 

^ William Cobbett, an English writer and attempted reformer, 
left his country through fear of punishment, and dwelt an exile for 
two years on Long Island. 



CHAPTER XXI 

COMMUNICATION AND THE EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL 

UNION. 

Not even the sarcasm of Dickens could stop the 
stream of immigration from Eurox3e whicli added 
itself to that from the Atlantic seaboard until it 
thronged every waterway and highway leading into 
the middle west. Thus while statesmen in Congress 
were debating the relative amount of power given to 
the central Union and that reserved to the respective 
states under the constitution, the people were solving 
the question by their demands for better communica- 
tion which the Union alone was prepared to satisfy. 
Their affection for the state was gradually under- 
mined. When the legislatures of Virginia and Ken- 
tucky in 1798 were voicing the protests of those 
states against the encroachment of the Union on 
their reserved rights,^ Moses Cleaveland was breaking 
through the barriers of the northern route and 
founding a city in territory under the exclusive con- 
trol of the federal Union. During the years that 
Calhoun was preparing to demonstrate his theory of 
the right of a state to nullify a trespassing act of the 

^ The Federalist majority, under the scare of a possible war with 
France, passed the Alien and Sedition laws in 1798, by which the 
president could order a dangerous alien to leave, or under certain 
circumstances not to enter tlie United States. The Sedition laws 
provided punishment for printing anything derogatory of the gov- 
ernment or its officers. The legislatures of some states protested 
against the general government thus interfering with citizens of a 
state. 

249 



250 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



central government/ that agency was constructing 
roads, aiding canals, dredging rivers, maintaining 
lighthouses, and constructing harbors in the various 
states. While Ha^aie was eloquently pleading in the 

Senate for the 
rights of South 
Carolina,^ the 
federal govern- 
ment was demon- 
strating both its 
necessity and its 
usefulness by en- 
gaging in many 
of these public 
works in that 
very state. 

Three of the 
powers expressly 
given to Con- 
gress by the con- 
s t i t u t i o n and 
which had been 
stretched by ne- 
cessity to cover 
such enterprises 
were : 1. To es- 
2. To raise and 




UNITED STATES POST ROUTES, 1790 



tablish post-offices and post-roads, 
support armies. 3. To regulate commerce. 

The first line of posts under the constitution 



^ This was the celebrated nullification theory, a midstep between 
protest and secession. 

- In the Hayne Webster debate of 1880. 



EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL UNION 251 

extended along the coast from Wiscassett, Maine, to 
Savannah, Georgia, witli spurs to Concord (New 
Hampshire), Albany (New York), Pittsburg (Penn- 
sylvania), Annapolis (Maryland), and Norfolk (Vir- 
ginia). Mail was carried over the northern main 
route three times per week in summer and twice per 
week in winter. To Pittsburg the mail was sent every 
two weeks. There were fifty-five post-offices on the 
main line and twenty-five on the cross lines. Postage 
was generally collected at the end of tlie journey and 




MAIL CARRIKR OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 



was rated according to the distance. The average 
rate for all letters mailed was about fifteen cents. To 
send a letter from Georgia to New York cost thirty- 
six cents. There were some twenty contractors, and 
since each consulted his convenience as to time of 
starting, the mails frequently missed connection. The 
expenses of the postal department amounted to about 
twenty thousand dollars annually. Newspapers were 
carried free. The income of the department was also 



252 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

decreased by ship captains in the coast trade carrying 
mail. 

In 1792 Congress extended the postal routes from 
Richmond, Virginia, across the mountains to Dan- 
ville, Kentucky. Two years later, routes Avere 
opened west of the Hudson river and from Kentucky 
into Tennessee. By 1800 the mails were extended to 
Syracuse, New York, up the Susquehanna to north- 
western Pennsylvania, and through the Northwest 
Territory along Zane's trace. In 1803 a route was 
established between Cincinnati and Detroit, but so 
late as 1815 mail reached the latter place from Cleve- 
land only once a week, and often the pouch did not 
contain a letter or paper because connections had been 
missed at the point of starting. In a majority of 
cases the mail contractor could use existing roads, 
but sometimes new roads had to be opened. Every 
road increased the hope that the national government 
would continue to grant such favors in the newly 
settled regions.^ 

The constitutional power of Congress to raise and 
support an army included the power of moving the 
troops from place to place and constructing roads for 
such purposes where none existed. At first waterways 
were at hand and afforded such easy routes that 
few roads were constructed for military purposes. 
The first necessity for moving troops on an extensive 



^ The north and south main stem of posts shifted to an east and 
west direction after the beginning of trans-continental railroads. 
In 1845 charges for letter carriage were reduced to five and ten cents, 
according to distance, and between 1851 and 1855 to a set fee of 
three cents, regardless of distance. In 1832 mails were carried on 
the railroads, and in 1863 were sorted on the cars en route. 



EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL UNION 253 

scale occurred in the War of 1812, and it found tlie 
United States unprepared. The " warliawks" who 
brought on the war had boasted upon the floor of 
Congress that the American arms would invade 
Canada and roll it up. The humiliating experience 
of the western campaigns was due largely to lack of 
means of transportation. When Harrison made his 
expedition, Governor Meigs of Ohio had to call out 
his rangers to cut ca way through that state. The suf- 
fering of the soldiers from lack of supplies almost 
surpasses belief. The waterways were of some 
service when frozen, but could not be depended upon. 
In the summer many of the streams were dried up. 
A member of Congress said afterward : "Weeks, nay, 
I may say months, elapsed in the forwarding of ord- 
nance, anchors, etc., from the seaboard to the 
northern frontier of New York. I am not certain 
that the anchor of the last great ship built at 
Sackett's harbor has yet (1817) reached that place." 
Another described the condition of a road which had 
been partly constructed through the Black Swamp in 
northwestern Ohio : "Not a solitary traveler now finds 
his way along that avenue ; it is principally indicated 
by the broken remnants of baggage-wagons and gun- 
carriages, scattered remains of flour barrels and the 
mouldering skeletons of horses and oxen, remaining 
as they were left just visible above the surface of the 
mud and wet which destroyed them." The war 
aided internal improvement projects in still another 
w^ay by raising insurance on ocean commerce so high 
that traders were compelled to find new inland 
routes. In 1813, goods to the amount of thirteen 



254 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

thousand dollars were sent by wagon from Boston to 
Providence, thence by water to Amboy, by wagon to 
Philadelphia and by the same conveyance to Pitts- 
burg. From that point they w^ent down the Ohio 
river and the Mississippi to New Orleans and thence 
by land and water to their destination — Mexico. The 
cost of transportation as far as New Orleans was but 
four and one-half per cent, while the insurance alone 
by the ocean was twenty-five per cent. In the winter, 
goods were transjDorted by sleighs. During the 
season it was not uncommon to count from five hun- 
dred to seven hundred sleighs on the road between 
Ithaca and Oswego, says Niles's Register. 

A practice had grown up gradually of allowing tlie 
United States soldiers stationed at the various mili- 
tary posts to work on public roads leading to the 
posts. It was a relief from the soldier's monotonous 
life, and added fifteen cents and an extra gill of 
whisky to his daily pay. The acquisition of Louisi- 
ana and Florida demonstrated still more the need of 
roads which had been experienced in the War of 1812, 
and Congress legalized this practice of employing 
soldiers. Before 1828, over two thousand miles of 
military roads had been made, and over five hundred 
miles were in process of construction.^ They were 
built mostly in the territories, and since Congress 
possessed the right of governing the territories, its 
power of constructing these roads was not ques- 

* Gallatin contemplated a great military and post road from 
Maine to Georgia, with radiating branches from Washington to 
New Orleans, St. Louis, and Detroit. Surveys were made, but con- 
stitutional difficulties prevented action, since it would pass through 
some of the states. 



EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL UNION 



255 



tioned. But every instance added a precedent for the 
construction by the government of means of commu- 
nication. 

So many difficulties of the old Articles of Confeder- 
ation were traceable to the retention of the control 
of commerce by the respective states, that the federal 




UXITKD STATES MILITARY ROADS BKFORE 1830 



gpovernment under the Constitution had little opposi- 
tion in taking the steps necessary to jpen all the 
avenues of the coast trade. Existing lighthouses 
and sites for new ones were accepted from the 



256 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

States. Wrecks were removed from harbors, and 
channels cleared of sand by the general government. 
As the country became settled, internal commerce was 
developed and demanded similar aids. Some of the 
advocates for the rights of the states would have dis- 
criminated between tide-water and fresh-water com- 
merce, allowing 
the union to 
foster the one 
and leaving the 
other to the care 
of the states. 
Such distinction 
was a physical 
impossibility.^ 

It was equally 
impossible to 
separate the in- 
ternal commerce on waterways from the internal com- 
merce on connecting highways. Public highways are 
essential to communication, and communication to 
unionism. Without communication there can be no 
uniformity of ideals, customs, thought, or action. 
The Greek republics, even on a petty scale, never 
rose above a bundle of states, separated by moun- 
tains. Isolation prevented true union. This neces- 
sary communication may be personal, by letter, by 




STATES I.IGHTHOITSK AXD FO« HORN' 



1 The advocates of internal improvements ridiculed this distinc- 
tion between salt-water and fresh-water commerce by suggesting 
the appointment of a chemist to determine the constitutionality 
of an appropriation. The money given bv Congress for rivers and 
harbors between 1789 and 1892 amounted to over $236,000,000. 
See the reports of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army. 



EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL UNION 257 

ne^vspaper, or l)y exchange of goods. Newlj married 
couples who went westward to seek a home never 
completely severed their relations wath the old home. 
Exchange of visits meant better roadways and means 
of travel. Now, travel in itself is an excellent means 
of education, as w^ell as an incentive to pride of coun- 
try and conse(|uent j^atriotism. The widely traveled ( 
man is the best patriot in the end although a more / 
provincial spirit may boast more loudly. Letter- 
writing means an exchange of ideas, and gratitude to 
the government which transports the mails. For the 
mails and the newspapers better roads must be pro- 
vided. The newsx)apers create a desire for novelties 
of fashion and comfort, and an interchange of com- 
modities follows. This resulting transfer of goods 
means better methods of transportation. Thus the 
Union is made by a series of interrelated and reaction- 
ary agencies. No view of the making of the Union is 
complete which omits the evolution and influence of 
means of transportation. 

The "road law^s" of the colonies were copies of 
those in England. In 1285 a statute had been passed 
in that country requiring the w^idening of all roads 
between market towns to prevent robberies, but it was 
not until 1555 that the demand for better roads 
brought a compulsory labor of four days in every 
year from every parishioner for mending the roads. 
Toll-gates were introduced in England soon after the 
Restoration of 1688. 

The necessity for roads between the villages of New 
England and the middle colonies of America was 
much more urgent than in the sparsely settled rural 



258 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

population of the southern colonies. Before the close 
of the eighteenth century there were fifty turnpike 
companies in Connecticut alone, owning 770 miles of 
road. Companies had been cliartered in New York 
to build oyer eight thousand miles of such roads, and 
there was a continuous line of good turnpikes from 
Boston to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia and Lan- 
caster turnpike Avas the first road built toward the 
west and its charter permitted its extension to Pitts- 
burg. A road was planned to parallel the Susque- 
hanna and ultimately reach Lake Erie for the 
purpose of diverting to Philadelphia tlie trade which 
would otherwise have gone to New York. Maryland 
began the construction of a turnpike to Fort Cumber- 
land on the Potomac, and Virginia inaugurated a 
similar enterprise to lead eventually to Kentucky. 
These private undertakings were confined to the At- 
lantic coast plain trade. Migration demanded a route 
over the mountains, the cost of which would be entirely 
beyond the means of such companies. Under the 
most innocent guise and in a form to which even the 
sticklers for a limited interpretation of the national 
powers of government could not object, the United 
States had authorized the beginning of a highway 
from the Atlantic drainage basin to the Mississippi 
basin. It grew into the great Cumberland national 
road. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE CUMBERLAND NATIONAL ROAD AND THE ERIE 
CANAL 

When Ohio was admitted to the Union, provision 
was made for giving that state five per cent of the 
proceeds of the sales of United States lands lying 
within it in return for the non-taxation by the state 
of those lands for five years. Three-fifths of this 
fund was to be spent by the United States in con- 
structing roads within the state, and the remaining 




COMDLETED< 
PqqjECTED 



THE CUMBERLAND ROAD, WITH APPROXIMATE DATES OF COMPLETION 



two-fifths in building a road over the mountains to 
connect the state with the seaboard. Similar pro- 
visions were made when Indiana, Illinois, and Mis- 
souri were admitted. By 1805 the two per cent 
amounted to some twelve thousand dollars, and 
commissioners were appointed who examined several 
routes and finally selected one extending from Fort 
Cumberland on the Potomac river to Wheeling (now 
West Virginia) on the Ohio. Allowing for deviations 

259 



260 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

from an air-line, the road would be about one hundred 
and forty-one miles long. It was the shortest portage 
from navigation on the Atlantic coast to the Ohio 
river. Indeed, at only fifty-one miles from Fort 
Cumberland the road crossed the Youghiogheny river 
which flowed eventually into the Ohio. 

Since the fund had not increased sufficiently to 
build the road, the United States treasury made an 
advance or loan upon expectations of future sales of 
land. Advances were thus made by congressional 
appropriations from time to time, until the demand 
for the completion of the road compelled Congress to 
cast aside the pretence of a loan, and to give money 
openly for this purpose. When the road had been 
completed to Wheeling about 1820, the states of 
Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri demanded its exten- 
sion, since their compact with the government 
promised a road to these states. The extension was 
located through Columbus, the capital of Ohio, 
through Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, through 
Vandalia, the capital of Illinois, to Jefferson City, 
the capital of Missouri. Work was begun at dif- 
ferent places and carried on under appropriations of 
Congress. 

The history of these demands illustrates the worst 
feature of this species of paternalism. It arouses the 
cupidity of the people. A dollar obtained from the 
public treasury is regarded as a gift of the gods. It 
comes directly from the pocket of no one. Further, 
every neighbor of a recipient thinks himself entitled 
to the same benefit. A congressman, therefore, feels 
himself obliged to get as much as possible for his 



THE CUMBERLAND ROAD AND ERIE CANAL 261 

constituency. On tlie other hand, notliing has con- 
tributed more to the comfort and welfare of the 
people in their expansion over the continent than the 
great system of public improvements inaugurated 
and carried on by the central government. For the 
Cumberland national road alone sixty distinct appro- 
priations were made between 1806 and 1838, giving 
the sum of $6,821,246. 

In constructing the road the trees were removed 




CUMBKRLAND ROAD— THE •' Y" BRIDGE AT ZAXESVILLE. OHIO 



from a space sixty feet in width, and in the middle a 
strip thirty feet wide was entirely cleared and leveled. 
In the middle of this thirty feet another strip twenty 
feet wide was covered with crushed stone to the 
depth of eighteen inches in the center, sloping to 
twelve inches at the sides. The pieces of stone were 
to be small enough to pass through a ring seven 
inches in diameter for the bottom layers and three 
inches for the top dressing. 

Before the building of the extension from Wheel- 



262 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



iiig, Macadam^ began in England his experiments on 
improved road making, and the new portion of the 
road was constructed according to his ideas. In 
the level country w^est of the Ohio river the cost of 
the road was not much more than half the cost of 



constructing it over the mountains. 



The route from 




THK CUMBERLAND ROAD C'ROSSIN(J M'CULLUCH 



NKAR WKKKI-IVO 



Vandalia to Jefferson City was in dispute, owing to 
the great rivalry between St. Louis and Alton as cross- 
ing places.^ In 1831 Congress allowed the state of Ohio 



1 John Loudon Macadam, a Scotch engineer, devised the principle 
of elevating the roadbed of highways instead of excavating to a 
level for them. This would allow drainage. He also covered the 
surface with some fine material wliich would pack under wear. 

^ "State pride" in Illinois would not let St. Louis be benetited by 
becoming tlie crossing place. This contest crept into Congress and 
delayed appropriations, so that little work was done on the road by 
the United States beyond Vandalia. 



THE CUMBERLAND HOAD AND ERIE CANAL 2(33 

to collect toll on the road for its repair and protection, 
and by 1856 had surrendered to the various states 
through which it passed the sections lying within 
each. The states completed the unfinished i^ortions, 
and oyer the eight hundred and thirty-four miles of 
the " National Pike " there poured a stream of colo- 
nists bound into the west. The time of the sta^re 
between Baltimore and Wheeling was reduced from 
eight to three days. In 1815 the Great Western Mail 
was started over the road, the prepayment of postage 
being required for this special service. Inns si:>rang 
up along the road at convenient distances. 

A member of the House of Representatives described 
the enormous travel on tlie road in 1824: "In a 
favorable season for migration, the traveler on this 
highway will scarcely lose sight of passengers of some 
description. Hundreds of families are seen migrat- 
ing to the west with ease and comfort. Drovers from 
the west with their cattle of almost every description 
are seen passing eastward seeking a market on this 
side of the mountains. ^ Indeed, this thoroughfare 
may be compared to a great street through some 
populous city — travelers on foot, on horseback, and 
in carriages are seen mingling on its paved surface, 
all seeming to enjoy the pleasure of the journey, and 
to have a consciousness of the great benefits derived 



^ A farmer named Renick, living near Cliillicothe, Ohio, is said 
to have started the practice of driving fatted stock to eastern 
markets. The profits were sufficiently great to stand the loss in 
vreight. The Rev. Timotliy Flint on his journey over the Allegheny 
mountains met a drove of a thousand hogs and cattle "as rough and 
shaggy as wolves and their drivers as untamed and wild in looks as 
Crusoe's man, Friday." 



204 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

from it. ''^ The investigator of the migration of 
American families will find all through tlie middle 
west descendants of pioneers who journeyed in 
covered wagons and on horseback over the Cumber- 
land national road. 

Henry Clay, who shares with Albert Gallatin the 
title of the father of the Cumberland road,^ contem- 
plated a branch leading from Ohio through Kentuck}^ 
to New Orleans. He succeeded in getting a measure 
through Congress authorizing a government subscrip- 
tion to one section extending from Maysville to Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky, but it was vetoed by President Jackson 
on the ground that the road was not national and the 
measure therefore unconstitutional. It was necessary 
on several occasions for a president to call the people 
back from their zeal for appropriations. As one 
result of this veto, the people of Kentucky were 
aroused and built the road from their own resources. 

Land transportation by wagon is much more expen- 
sive than water carriage, and can not be conducted on 
an extensive scale without the expenditure of a large 
sum for equipment.^ Artificial water communication 
was an early subject of investigation and agitation 
amomr the colonists. In 1759 the Duke of Bridw- 



1 McLean, of Ohio. See Debates of Congress, 1824-5 vol. I, p. 203. 

2 Clay said that the people were so grateful that he could travel 
free from one end of the Cumberland road to the other. Toll-gates 
opened to him and landlords would accept no pay. His journeys 
between Kentucky and W^ashington were continued ovations. See 
Harper s Magazine, 1879, and The Cliauiauquan, vol. XIII. 

^ Engineers claimed that a horse would draw one ton on a good 
road in a cart weighing seven hundred pounds at a rate of two miles 
an hour. On a canal the same animal could draw thirty tons in 
a boat weighing ninety thousand pounds. The canal increased the 
drawing power of the horse thirty times. 



THE CUMBERLAND ROAD AND ERIE CANAL 2G5 

water had begun in England his experiments in 
canals for barges, which resulted in giving that 
country over four thousand miles of inland naviga- 
tion. The attention of the Philadelphia Philosophical 
Society was called to this subject, and it caused a line 
of levels to be run between the Delaware and the 
Schuylkill rivers. After the Revolution, a " Society 
for Promoting tlie Improvement of Koads and Inland 





KilOM PHILADELPHIA !(» PITTSBURG 



Navigation" was organized in Philadelphia, with 
Robert Morris, the financier and promoter, as first 
president. In 1794 Virginia opened the Dismal 
Swamp canal, twenty-nine miles long, the first in 
America. It was to be one link in a vast chain of 
inland navigation, by means of which the coast com- 
merce could be carried on during times of war and 
blockade. It would require a canal from Cape Cod 
bay to Buzzard's bay, which is almost within the 



266 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

shelter of Long Island sound ; from Newark bay to 
the Delaware river ; from the Delaware to Chesa- 
peake bay ; thence to the Dismal Swamp, and by 
the Dismal Swamp canal to Albemarle and Pamlico 
sounds. War vessels of light draft could thus 
defend the coast from Massachusetts to Carolina 
without danger of undue exposure to the enemy 
or wreck in doubling capes. Several of these pro- 
jected canals were begun, but they were confined 
to the Atlantic coast trade ; they failed to satisfy 
the demands of the people across the mountains for 
an outlet. 

The acquisition of Louisiana had opened the Mis- 
sissippi route for the marketing of western products, 
but New Orleans did not prove a seaport attractive to 
foreign vessels. Toward the east it was farther from 
Europe than the Atlantic seaports and past the 
dangerous Florida Keys. Toward the west nothing 
could be hoped for until an Isthmian canal should be 
constructed. The hopes of the trans-Alleghanians 
turned again toward the Atlantic. The Great Lakes 
formed a system of inland seas, tlie largest in the 
world, l)ut their outlet passed through foreign ter- 
ritory, involving the annoyance of customs duties. 
An artificial water communication with the Atlantic 
coast was im^Derative. Where and by whom should 
it be built? The strict constructionists now in full 
power would likely prevent national aid and turn the 
project over to some enterprising state. 

In his celebrated report of 1808, Albert Gallatin, sec- 
retary of the treasury, had pointed out the three great 
watersheds east of the Mississippi, and the necessity 



THE CUMBERLAND ROAD AND ERIE CANAL 267 

of providing communication between them/ The 
Alleghany mountains made a canal impossible, a fact 
of which tlie Philadelphians were keenly aware. 
On the other hand, New York realized that the 
Hudson river burst through the northern remnant 
of the mountains at the Highlands and that Troy, the 
head of navigation, was west of the barrier. West of 
Troy lay a fertile region inviting settlement, but with 
no means of communication. Beyond lay the Great 
Lakes. The project of the Erie canal from Albany to 
Buffalo was frequently considered by Congress, but 
nothing was done. At last the state of New York 
assumed the expense and, after years of agitation, 
the scheme was realized in 1825 when the boomino; of 
cannon stationed at intervals along the line proclaimed 
that the lakes and the sea were united. A few weeks 
later a cask filled with water at the western terminus 
and brought to New Yoi'k was emptied with great 
ceremony into the harbor. It was the "wedding of 
the waters."^ The effect of the canal on New York 
Avas soon felt. In 1790 New York city had just passed 
Philadelphia in population ; in 1830 she was double, 
in 1840 three times, and in 1850 four times the size 
of her rival. By 1833 flour was being shipjDed from 
the Venice mills on Sandusky bay, an arm of Lake 
Erie, to New York city. The west was beginning to 
feed the east. 



^ This report may be found in the American State Papers, vol. 
XX., page 724. 

2 For an account of the triumphal journey of Governor Clinton in 
a barge from Erie to New York, see Niles's Register, Vol. XXV. 
Other canals were added until New York had 906 miles of arti- 
ficial waterways. 



268 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

The Erie canal also exerted a powerful influence 
throughout the lake regions. Between 1820 and 1840 
the states north of the Ohio and east of the Missis- 
sippi increased as a whole over 360 per cent in popu- 
lation. They began to project canals between their 
waterways. In 1828, Governor Clinton, of New 
York, known as the father of the Erie canal, was the 
guest of the state of Ohio, and turned tlie first earth 
in the canal system which that state inaugurated 
between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. ^ Rivalry 
between different cities caused two canal lines to be 
built eventually, but the investment was regarded as 
profitable by the taxpayers. 

Indiana had fewer inhabitants but began the 
Wabash and Erie canal to follow the Maumee and 
Wabash rivers, thus forming a new route from Lake 
Erie to the Ohio river transversely through the state. 
Soon after slie planned the Cross Cut canal at Terre 
Haute, the Whitewater, the Central, and the Erie and 
Michigan. The Wabash opened the district hitherto 
blocked by the Great Black Swamp and brought many 
immigrants from the northern states to give to Indiana 
the sectional population which already marked Ohio 
and Illinois. Illinois, with a small i^opulation but a 
sublime hope in the future, projected the Illinois and 
Michigan canal, forming an outlet from the lower 
end of that lake to the Illinois river, and thence to 



^ Governor Morrow, of Ohio, turned the second spadeful of eartli, 
and Thomas Ewing, the orator of the day, the third. The Chilli- 
cothe Guards were present. Food had been brought twenty-one 
miles from Lancaster, and dinner was spread in a grove on tables 
improvised from newly -sawed boards. Afterward Governor Clinton 
made a tour of the state as a public guest. 



THE CUMBERLAND ROAD AND ERIE CANAL 269 

the Mississippi at the future city of Alton. Michigan 
planned a canal from Mt. Clemens to the mouth of 
the Kalamazoo river, but abandoned the project. 
Wisconsin inaugurated the Wisconsin and Fox river 
improvement.^ 

Congress gave public lands to aid many of these 
enterprises,^ although the low prices at which the 
lands were sold often robbed the undertaking of its 
just rewards. 

An interesting but transitory phase of transporta- 
tion in the middle west may be found in the "plank 
roads" first constructed when stone and gravel were 
wanting. Upon girders placed lengthwise, boards or 
planks three inches thick were laid crosswise, and 
over them a thin dressing of earth was placed. At 
first it seemed an excellent and cheap substitute for 
the more common road-making material and many 
companies were organized to construct toll plank 
roads. But the roads proved not to be durable and 
almost impossible to repair and the system was soon 
abandoned. 

^ Six thousand miles of canals were constructed in the t'^nited 
States, of which more than one-third has been abandoned. 

^ Over four million acres were so granted, besides the cash of the 
"surplus distribution"' of 1837. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



STEAMBOA^J'S AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 

The experiments of Fitch, Riimsey, and Fulton with 
the steamboat have been described in preceding pages. 
In the first twenty years of the Constitution a score of 

patents were issued for 

is expected that sWMi-u^itiii!> wiu Aumi 
navigate the Connecticut, as far up as 
Windsor. Several years ago, a steam- 
boat ascended the river to the distance 
of two hundred miles from its mouth, and 



was warmly greeted by the inhabitants 
along the Jjanks. 



such purposes as "pro- 
pelling boats by cat- 
tle," or "by horses" ; 
" for a new method of 
propelling a l)oat up 
stream " ; " for an im- 
proved steamboat," 
etc. A f e w s t e amb o at s 
were employed as fer- 
ries, but no extended 
use of them was mftde 
until Fulton and Liv- 
ingston inaugurated 
their packet line on 
the Hudson. They*' 
were granted a mo- 
nopoly by the state of 
New York, and Robert L. Stevens, who had constructed 
a steamer on the Hudson, was compelled to take it 
around to Philadelphia. The coast trade thus ])egun 
was soon in vigorous prosecution. Upon every navi- 
gable Atlantic stream a line of boats was inaugiu'ated. 

270 




a Steam-boat. 



11. What took place in 1764? 12. Whoa did 
V. become one of the United States t What of 
Vermont one himdred years ago ? What of it now ? 
Describe the picture. 



(FROM PETER PAKI.EV'S KIKST BOOK OF HISTORY) 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 271 

Although more sparsely populated, the western 
country with its great distances felt more need of 
rapid communication by water than did the east. 
The building of flatboats and barges at Pittsburg and 
other points on the Ohio and its tributaries had 
grown into an extensive ship-building industry. 
In 1800, the St. Clair, named in honor of the 
governor of the Northwest Territory, was launched at 
Marietta, Ohio. Full rigged for ocean, as well as 
river, voyage, she was loaded with pork and flour and, 
under command of Commodore Whipple, sailed down 
the Ohio, over the Falls, and to New Orleans. She 
then went on to Havana and returned to Philadelphia 
with a cargo of sugar. 

Commodore Whipple had gained his title during 
the Revolutionary war in which it was claimed he 
had fired the first naval gun. His feat late in life of 
bringing a sailing vessel from the Ohio around to 
Philadelphia attracted general attention and he was 
given a continued ovation as he returned overland tc 
Marietta. ♦The following extracts are taken from a 
poem written on this occasion : 

The Triton crieth, 
" Who Cometh now from shore ? *" 

Neptune replieth, 
" 'Tis the old commodore." 
Long has it been since I saw him before. 
In the 3^ear seventy-five from Columbia he came, 
The pride of the Briton on ocean to tame. 

But now he comes from the western woods, 

Descending slow with gentle floods, 

The pioneer of a mighty train, 

Which commerce brings to my domain. 



272 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Within five years after Fulton's successful venture 
with the Clermont, he sent the art of steamship build- 
ing across the mountains, and launched the Orleans 
at Pittsburg, the pioneer of the extensive industry 
in steamboat building, which soon sprang up all 
through the western country. At first the steam 
was used simply to assist the current in vessels pass- 
ing down stream ; 
but in 1815, a 
steamboat dem- 
onstrated the pos- 
sibility of going 
against the cur- 
rent by travers- 
ing the distance 
between New Or- 
leans and Pitts- 
burg in thirty- five 
days. The Mis- 
*" sissippi river had 

not been improved and was so obstructed by "snags 
and sawyers"^ that twenty-five days had been 
consumed in reaching Louisville. Yielding to the loud 
clamor from the west, the United States government 
began the improvement of the western waters, thus 




[CAN STEAMBOAT 



^ Old trees floating in the rivers often sank to the bottom and 
became partly embedded, leaving a projecting limb or root to f(-rm 
a "snag." If the limb or trunk was only parti}" fixed, it rose ; i(i 
fell in the current and seemed to saw the water. It was calle ; i\, 
"sawyer." The rivers had accumulated many of these dangers to 
navigation in the process of the ages, and government "sn.u,- 
boats" were employed in removing them. Those who opposed sim !» 
work on constitutional grounds were said to be in favor of "snauc-', 
sawyers, and the constitution forever!" 



STEAMBOATS . 



. vII>ROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 273 



accepting the task of fostering internal as well as 
ocean commerce. 

Adventurous captains soon took their light draught 
vessels up the Mississippi above St. Louis and up the 
Missouri as far as the Yellowstone region. Steam 
navigation was begun on the Great Lakes when the 
Wcdk-in-the- Water started from Black Rock, near 
Cleveland, Ohio, for Detroit. It eventuall}^ reached 




Mackinac.^ But it was not until 1832 that a steam- 
boat came to Chicago. 

The traffic on the western waters soon assumed 
enormous proportions. A count was kept at Cairo, 
Illinois, in 1840 which showed 4,566 vessels having 
passed that point during the year. Competition and 
poorly built vessels, together with the imperfectly 
cleared streams, made river travel perilous. During 

^ This vessel was rather oval in shape, with side wheels. It was 
named after an old Indian chief. Those Indians who saw it on its 
journey claimed the fulfillment of a prophecy that a huge canoe 
drawn by sturgeons would come up the lakes. 



274 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



■%^ 



the same year there were 109 disasters chronicled, 
causing a loss of 59 vessels and 205 lives. Aside from 
the danger, water transportation was interrupted 
during the winter season and was unreliable in the 
midsummer droughts. The demand for better facili- 
ties of transportation on land brought eventually the 
perfected railway. 

The stages of the evolution of the railroad train 
from the wheeled wagon are so many and so slight in 
difference that the dates and places of " first " things 

remain in much 
^i ^ ^ . ^ n dispute. So early 

as 1680, strips of 
wood or rock 
ledges were used 
for cars in the 
coal mines of 
England, and by 
1738 the wood 
was surfaced with 
strips of iron. Such roads were used in the United 
States before 182^ for carrying earth in the con- 
struction of canals and for transporting blocks of 
stone. Two years later the force of gravity was used 
in propelling cars in the Mauch Chunk collieries, the; 
cars being drawn up the incline by mules. 

Several American applications of steam to carriages 
were made by inventors, one of the most interesting 
being that of Oliver Evans, a fertile inventor, who 
built his ' ' Oracta Amphibolis "Mo riyi upon the 

' Two Greek words meaning "created to run on both." They are 
sometimes written "Orakter Amphibolos" or "Erukter Amphibolis.'' 




^W^- 
^^A 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 275 

water or upon the land. His craft created much 
excitement when run through the streets of Phila- 
delphia. Every incident connected with the experi- 
ments of Stephenson in England was printed in the 
United States, and public expectation was aroused to 
a high pitch when the ' ' Stourbridge Lion ' ' ^ arrived 
in 1829 to draw cars from the Honesdale, Penn- 
sylvania, coal mines to the canal. 

The same year, probably the first railroad built in 
America expressly for a locomotive was constructed 




MODEL OF MOHAWK AND HUDSON TRAIN 



from Charleston to Columbia, South Carolina. Cars 
were drawn upon it at first by horses, then driven by 
sail, and eventually drawn by a locomotive called the 
Ik "Best Friend." Extended to Hawley, it became the 
longest railroad at the time in the United States, and 
first carried the mails. Maryland probably con- 
structed the first railroad by public charter — the Bal- 
timore and Ohio. Charles Carroll, of Revolutionary 
fame, turn^ the first earth, and it was opened as far 

^ There was the head of a lion painted on the front of the loco- 
motive, and it had been built at Stourbridge, England. 



276 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

as the Relay House in 1830/ Peter Cooper, proprie- 
tor of the Canton iron works at Baltimore, built a 
locomotive from his own design, the first constructed 
in America, and so saved the railroad when it was 




AKRIVAL OF FIRST TRAIN AT WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA * 

about to be abandoned as unprofitable. His locomo- 
tive raced with a horse drawing a car on the other 



* From a daguerreotype. 

^ Charles Carroll, of Maryland, was the last survivor of the signers 
of the Declaration of Independence, dying in 1832 at the age of 
ninety-five. The Relay station received its name from the practice 
of keeping a fresh relay of horses for the cars at that place. 
"Peter Parley's" First Book of History, printed about 1880, says: 
"But the most curious thing at Baltimore is the railroad. I must 
tell you that there is a great trade between Baltimore and the states 
west of the Alleghany mountains. . . . Now in order to carry 
on all this business more easily, the people are building what they 
call a railroad. This consists of iron bars laid along the ground, 
and made fast so that carriages with small wheels may run along 
them with facility. In this way, each horse will be able to draw 
as much as ten horses on a common road. A part of this railroad 
is already done, and if you choose to take a ride upon it, you may 
do so. You will mount a carriage something like a stage and then 
you will be drawn along by two horses at the rate of twelve miles 
an hour." 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 277 



track, but lost by a belt slipping from a wlieel. This 
locomotive showed the possibility of going around 
curves in the road and gave an impetus to railroad 
building. In 1832 the road was extended westward 



W- 








^jr iSiiJi. U.\>t\b C^S.i «K'i) lArtAi i'4\lZM'XZ, 

PbHadelpiiia to 

TUROVaU I9i 3i DAYS! 

.§.VtfUf<itr..i.'tHn.iis. < .IHH I i.rt. iiii i .n 1 1 ii \ i.i i t.T .n.«lt„ 

^n>n PITTKBI R<.ill 1« LOI IKVIIXE. 




eilK«r« for < !f! 



\ ,^rM!ll' >t. Iv 



OFFICE, N R. CORiVEK OP FOl'KTIi AXD CIItaSJIlT ST. 



JL B. Ci/pLWiAVa, J0mt. 



to the " Point of Rocks," and excursionists made the 
round trip of one hundred and forty miles in seven- 
teen hours. In 1835 there were two hundred miles of 
railroad in operation in Pennsylvania, one hundred 
and thirty-seven in South Carolina, one hundred and 



278 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

thirty in Virginia, and one hundred each in Massa- 
chusetts, New York, and New Jersey.^ 

These first roads were constructed solely as feeders 
to the canals and as connections between natural 
waterways. No one supposed that the railroad could 
ever suj^plant the canal, and a contest went on 
between the two for ten years before the railroad 
demonstrated its superiority in cheapness, speed, and 
ease of construction. Sometimes there was oj)en 
hostility and almost bloodshed between these two 
forms of public improvement as in the case of the 
Baltimore and Potomac canal and the Baltimore and 
Ohio railroad. Each claimed the right of way over 
the same ground. The first railroads were so poorly 
constructed, as seen from the following description, 
that they had to be rebuilt : 

First a mud-sill was laid down lengthwise of the road ; .strong 
cross ties were then spiked on this mud-sill; into these "gains" were 
cut, and these received the wooden rails sawed to fit them. These 
rails were about five inches wide at the top, broadening at the 
bottom where they entered the gains, and were about seven inches 
high. On these the "ribbon" was spiked, being a strip of hard wood 
about two and one-half inches wide by one inch thick, and on this 
the strap iron was laid. Spikes were driven through the strap-rail 
and the ribbon into the large wooden rail beneath; the heads of the 
spikes being sunken into "eyes" in the strap-rails, leaving a smooth 
surface for the wheels. 

^ Number of miles of railways in operation in the United States in 
different years : 

1840 2,818 

1843 4,026 

1847 5,598 

1850 10,982 

1860 30,635 

1898 186,396 



1830 


32 


1831 

1832 


95 

229 


1833 

1834 


380 

633 


1835 


1,098 


1838 


1.913 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 279 




With such construction, accidents were numerous. 
It became necessary in many instances to sheath the 
bottom of passenger coaches to prevent the strap-iron 
piercing the cars by becoming loosened and curling 
oyer the wheels. The cars were modeled after the 
stagecoaches, and passengers were "booked" by 
name when pur- 
chasing tickets. 
There were no 
side tracks and 
on a single track 
road the passen- 
gers on the local 
horse car must 
alight and lift 
their coach from 
the track while 
the locomotive 
express passed 
them. On the 
double track the 
horse drawing 
the car in one di- 
rection sometimes 
in its alarm 

jumped in front of the locomotive going in the opposite 
direction and was killed. Passengers on the tops of 
the coaches had their clothing ruined by the sparks 
from the locomotive. Sometimes they raised um- 
brellas on which water was poured frequently. 

Many stories are told of the wonder and even alarm 
of the people upon the advent of the locomotive. 



The }i{<'ii''itr<- 1 




fuilij rei/u( \>vtl «.' " , 1 N 1 ! 1. 1 MN' ! - • , ' ', 


11 


git'f)i III tfi'.s Ci/t/, rot/nnniri/t:; 1 ,1 t 'c- IO//1 


j£^tt''<' nej-/, in celfbrutionnj the vumpletton 


■pS** Srvrt ('APiitt <i nit the Mw.m.u Avt> 


sps 


HK^rroN R^ii. U )M> 


m 


< tlVKl.L". \1AM,\, '- \I,K!il.l) JONh-. 

\\n.i.iv« wHiri:. | = I m-ki'hi,.\ miiu-ui, 
K, H. vvi.M.Art:. 1 -i . .\\r. (, i,\m> 
(.EOHUK i.u'M.K '*^^ c. t'. i;\rM,i.. 

I'LKKIN H HI >\\V.V - , (, \>.r,)N M V ;i Iii .;, 

s w wiiiiiM.. 1 - ! (;Kt)u(,i; w imi h 
J ■. ( \\\y\:\ I.I - \r Lii.!;i i 1.' (,ii. -^ 


h 7j 



m 



280 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Great celebrations were held in honor of the comple- 
tion of a railroad, and sometimes the state officials 
were carried upon the first train. A local poet 
describes in the Western Magazine such an occasion : 

The mothers ran out with their children about — 

From every log cabin they hail ; 
Tlie wood-chopper he stood delighted to see 

The law-makers ride on a rail. 
The horses and cattle, as onward we rattle, 

Were never so frightened before. 

Other rhymsters were filled with the impulse of 
the new era/ although the teamsters felt that the 
railroad would be a formidable competitor. One 
stanza current among them ran : 

Oh, it's once I made money by driving my team, 
But now all is hauled on the railroad by steam, 
May the devil catch the man that invented the plan, 
For it's ruined us poor wagoners, and every other man. 

The remarkable growth of internal commerce, the 
rapid development of intra-continental communica- 
tion, and the marvelous growth of western population 
brought on the speculating mania of 1836-38. Cities 
were staked out in the wilderness, town lots without 
any definite location brought extravagant prices, and 
companies were exploited for the most chimerical 
purposes. The Great Western railroad was projected 
to run from New York to Lake Erie and thence west- 
ward to the Mississippi at the mouth of the Rock 
river. It was to be built on piling, and it was said 

^One "poem" begins: 

The world is too busy for dreaming, 

And liatli grown too wise for war ; 
So to-day, for the glory of Science, 

Let us sing of the Railway Car. 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 281 

that it could be constructed at the rate of twenty rods 
a day. The total length of one thousand and fifty 
miles would cost fifteen million dollars. Lands were 
received for subscriptions at extravagant prices. A 
farm, which had been appraised at ten dollars an 
acre, brought one hundred dollars an acre when con- 



l-'J CiMl'^", V -|- 






\i ^ 




P-AILKOAD. ■ , ^ 

.. . !'.. k, A. M. < 



2 
■i 



>1. 

P.M. 



f Ijoffmir-Iivo Kngmf '>vil! ](^a\i- Xhf \}i , 



k, P. .M. 




verted into stock. Seven lots in "Ohio City" brought 
one thousand dollars each. Cities were staked out 
along the proposed route. Some feared that in time 
all the farming land would be occupied by cities and 
a famine ensue. 

Other "paper roads" crossed the country in all 



282 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

directions, and "terminal cities" were laid out on 
magnificent proportions. Many lots were purchased 
in tlie cit}^ of Manhatta before it was discovered that 
it lay in a swamp two miles below Toledo, Ohio. 
Men took great chances. A lot was bought in 
"Fairport Harbor" for two thousand five hundred 
dollars that has long since returned to farm land ; 
another swampy tract of one hundred and two acres 
near the lower end of Lake Michigan sold for $127. 86i, 
and afterwards became a part of the city of Chicago. 
Many town sites containing great bargains in lots 
were sent from Chicago to the eastern cities and dis- 
posed of at extravagant j)rices.^ 

The legislature of Illinois reflected the iDopular 
demand when it j)lanned the construction of thirteen 
hundred miles of state railroad to cost over a billion 
dollars, the improvement of five rivers at a cost of 
nearly a half million, and the distribution of two 
hundred thousand dollars to the few counties contain- 
ing neither a railroad nor a river imj)rovement. Of 
these extravagant sums, over eight million dollars 
were actually appropriated, until the state debt 
amounted to $29.78 for every inhabitant. When the 
governor-elect in 1842 entered upon his duties, there 
was not enough money in the state treasury to pay his 
postage.^ 

^ In a St. Louis paper an advertisement of the burlesque town of 
"Ne Plus Ultra" appeared. The streets were to be one mile in 
width and tlie squares sections of six hundred and forty acres each. 
In the heart of the city a road from Pekin to Jerusalem crossed 
another from the south pole to Symmes' hole at the north pole. 

2 This statement is made by ex-Governor Ford in his "History of 
Illinois," page 278. Brown's "Historj^of Illinois" (1844) contains a 
map showing the network of proposed canals and railroads for 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 283 

Ohio also passed a "plunder law" in 1837, by 
which the state loaned her credit in six per cent stock 
to the amount of one-third the stock in any railroad 
enterprise, provided the other two-thirds w^ere paid by 
the company. In ten years the state owned half a 
million in stock upon which not a cent had been 
received. Some of it was subsequently sold for eight 
cents on the dol- 
lar. The state ^ Wisconsin mi ijiiii) 
gave to railroads %sav.nnah ltf"''# 

almost two mil- D \ ^ /]^^^V>— .. .1 

lions, and to ca- r^ ^'^4^\^^^^^^^ 
nals six hundred J pe„.,a(#L ^^A ' ..M^^^S^^' ° 
thousand dollars. / ^^'"'''Vr^ ^Sioomington | ^^^*^ v^^^ 
Michigan spent fcZ>f!.^--'^-5;;''p'" 11 jjiudianapoiisi... 

O -f \ /Springfield^ • "'M/ J^' / |A^ O 

some eight mil- \^l^:%i;7Z7'§^^'''^<---3~. 

lions on canals, ^^^d^^^^^^^^^-^^^^^^^-^ 

rivers, and rail- /s>^^ aPi.u<ue,vi,iJ^^^^;<^^;;^~^^ 
roads.^ In In- V\ / P '"'""~"" ^'^T 

lana railroad ^\ 

corporations were 

allowed to issue ""°"°'^" hai.koaus anb^cana.s .ok inbiana an. 

scrip or paper 

money, with which they paid laborers and pur- 

^The "wildcat" or state banks, which sprang up after the expira- 
tion of the second United States bank, added to this madness. 
Different states gave large sums to encourage these state enter- 
prises. In Michigan, before issuing paper money, a state bank was 
required to show" a certain per cent of its capital, and it is said that 
the same specie, after satisfying the commissioners at one place, 
was sent on ahead of them to appear at the next point of applica- 
tion, and so would serve again and again. In 1839 there were forty- 
two banks in that state in the hands of receivers. One bank was 
found issuing money from a blacksmith's shop. In 1840 the debt of 
the state amounted to over five million dollars, w^ith two hundred 
thousand population. 



284 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

chased material. When it was found that the road 
would not be completed the scrip rapidly became 
worthless. In 1841 tlie debt of the state amounted 
to eighteen million dollars, with a population of less 
than six hundred thousand. Missouri escaped the 
fever of 1837, but in 1849 became responsible for 
twenty millions of dollars in building railroads. The 
United States aided these enterprises in certain of 
the states. Public lands for constructing railroads 




RAILROAD "SCRIP" 



were donated to Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Mis- 
souri, Arkansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida, 
and Louisiana. 

Notwithstanding the sad results of this insanity, 
a few railroads were actually constructed and oper- 
ated, usually between heads of navigable waters. 
Gradually link was added to link until long continuous 
journeys were possible. A passenger could cross the 
state of New York by rail in 1843, but he was carried 
by sixteen different companies. In 1853 the first 
■ consolidation was effected in the New York Central. 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 285 

The same year the Erie was opened as a rival route to 
the west, and tlie next year the Pennsylvania. With 
these " trunk lines" a new era of railroad operating 
was opened. The process of leasing small lines and 




railk(jad;s and canals in opkration in 1847 



combining them into a system has grown into vast 
proportions. 

The state of Michigan had constructed the Michigan 
Central from Detroit to Marshall. The Michigan 
Southern was in operation from Toledo to Hillsdale. 

* Reports of Committees, 1st session, XXX Congress, vol. II. 1847-8. 



286 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

From these points passengers went by stage to St. 
Joseph or to NeAV Buffalo and across the lake to Chi- 
cago. Both railways were extended, and, after a sharp 
contest in northern Indiana, rounded the lake and en- 
tered Chicago in 1852 within two days of each other. 
The beginning of a railway west of Chicago was due 




MONUMENT TO JULIEN DUBUQUE, DUBUQUE, IOWA 



to the lead mines of northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, 
and southern Wisconsin. For many years it was 
known that the Indians obtained lead from that 
region, and when the French came in they opened 
mines on a small scale. One claim, owned by Du- 
buque,^ gave name to a settlement on the west bank 

^This claim to twenty-one leagues of land, including the ''Span- 
ish mines, " had been granted in 1796 by Baron Carondelet to Andrew- 
Todd and by him to Julien Dubuque on condition that the latter 
work the lead mines only and not interfere with the trade. 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 287 

of the Mississippi. For many years after the country 
came under the control of the United States it lay 
beyond the frontier, was occupied by untrusty 
Indians, and was very sparingly visited. Constituting 



mm nowtMHWOMrw 



e!*1 




sS^SSiHSeSBBsl SSVb^rFrrS^BB^S 



' PAIiJiEMCiER €AR!i, 

PBOPELLED DY A I^OCOMOTIVE EKQINi; 

— ^ . Lfarri> fhc nri>„i. :.t .\3: \\ < ' ANTMv, for FKE.%'CIITOW!^, 

! Upon tlic nrr'nM L.l'tht Sl,>ui.i-I.uat tn»i Pl.iliuklpl.la. nt ahout 

Balf Past meht o'clock, 

li^^ Lcaiesi FrencIitoi«ia a< nhoiii llHlf=PaM Ten oVIoek. 

Di'lwrU from \V« ( , ,1 („, ( i.ai. Ijtonn i i, Mruii 2 ( \i,i.i v.in.i.c ,» ii,;"ii I'" una! 
>./tJi VJTl.U\()ti\ f;(» VI /,.„« i'l,l„l.(!.li., ,1 .>r...,( •« > ..1..1. .•■■' ' . ^ 
^ — - "-- •'""'^ I'-'^ 

rare o^tf ilK lt«ad ....... .•jo • « nf*. 

Do., far f\rut*oioi> »-.<% liai' i'oa<{ «e:i(i 



i»o., far f\rm^lo«» »-,<■» iiaJ»oa«J «t»ti {«uJc • - ''^*JJ"'l" »^ 



successively a part of the Indiana, the Illinois, and 
the Michigan territories, the region seemed to give 
little encouragement to the suggestion frequently 
made that the Indians be employed 'in lead mining. 
By 1820 civilization had advanced so far into 



288 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Illinois and up the Mississippi that mineral pros- 
pectors found their way into the lead country. News 
of the rich fields spread to the states and produced a 
"rush." It was an embryonic California. One of 
the most famous points was named "Galena." ^ Lead 
was worth thirty dollars a ton and fortunes of those 
days were easily made. The winters proved severe 
and many miners in the southern i^art of the field 
went home in the autumn and returned in the spring, 
like the "sucker" in the river. Some would 
attribute the nickname of tlie state of Illinois to this 
fact as well as trace the nickname of the northern 
or Wisconsin mines to the "badgers " which burrowed 
in the ground and remained all winter. 

This undue development of population placed the 
early j^olitical power of Wisconsin in the southwestern 
corner of the state. It also created an isolated group 
of people in northern Illinois for whom a more direct 
route to the east must be found than down the Missis- 
sippi and up the Ohio. Transportation of the product 
of the mines demanded a similar outlet. The main 
stem of the Illinois State railway was j)lanned for this 
purpose but failed of realization. For many years a 
railroad connection with Chicago was agitated and at 
last the Galena and Chicago Union was begun on 
piling driven in the low ground between the Chicago 
and the Desplaines rivers. When four miles had been 
completed, a little locomotive called the "Pioneer" 
was unloaded from a boat at Chicago on a Sunday 
forenoon in 1848 and began its work of hauling 
material for further construction over the strap iron 

^ This is the technical name for the common lead ore. 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 289 

rails/ In one month the line had reached the Des- 
plaines river, a distance of ten miles. Two freight 
cars were loaded with a hundred Chicagoans for the 
first trip and, on returning, brought in a carload of 
wheat. In a short time the road was earning fifteen 




THE '• PIONEER' 



iST LOCOMOTIVE IN CHICAGO 



dollars a day hauling grain into the city. In 1850 
the road had reached Elgin and owned four locomo- 
tives, twenty-nine freight and two passenger cars. A 
trans-continental line would be next in order. 



^ This locomotive was preserved by the Chicago and Northwestern 
Raih'oad, of which the old Galena and Chicago Union became a part. 
The company has placed the valuable relic in the Field Columbian 
Museum, Chicago, deiDartment of transportation. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 

In 1825 had come the first opportunity of apprecia- 
ting the lack of proper means of travel in the inland 
regions, and, as it eventually i)roved, one of the first 
incitements to national iDride. General Lafayette, 
upon invitation of President Monroe acting under 
orders of Congress, spent one year and four months 
as the nation's guest. At first his time was given to 
the eastern cities, but yielding to the demands of 
remoter places, he made a tour from Washington 
through Virginia to Georgia, thence to New Orleans 
and up the Mississippi and Ohio to Pittsburg. From 
here he went to Lake Erie, and, passing down the 
Erie canal, reached Boston in time to assist in the 
laying of the corner-stone for Bunker Hill monument. 
One hundred days were consumed on the journey of 
five thousand miles through seventeen states. About 
half the travel was performed by land and half by 
water. He was received in Baltimore in the tent 
formerly used by Washington, was entertained with 
a "ball play" by the Cherokees when passing through 
their country in Georgia, and attended the Amer- 
ican and French theaters in New Orleans. At every 
city and village he was received by lines of school 
children carrying banners and flowers. The only 
unfortunate incident of the tour occurred when the 
steamboat Mechanic struck a snag between Memphis 

390 



THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 291 

and Louisville and immediately sank. The unfortu- 
nate travelers escaped to the shore, the General losing 
his carriage and his baggage, including many valu- 
able papers. The captain lamented the loss of his 
vessel, but much more the unhappy plight into which 
he had put the nation's guest. He feared that he 
would never be forgiven. He did not realize what 




PLATTER COMMEMORATING VISIT OF LAFAYETTE 



strength the accident would develop as an argument 
in favor of improving western navigation by appro- 
priations from Congress. 

Lafayette's visit gave expression to the silently 
growing pride of country. It showed how vast was 
the inhabited domain and yet how easily reached. 
Orators made contrast of the thirteen states when 



292 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Lafayette had been last in America with the twenty- 
four at the present time ; of the three millions popu- 
lation then and the ten millions now. Medals 
commemorative of the event were struck, platters 
showing his reception in New York city Avere made, 
and Congress voted him two hundred thousand dol- 
lars and a township of land. 

By contrast the Duke of Saxe-Weimar visited every 
state in the union the following year. The press 
welcomed him as " any ordinary mortal, even a cob- 
bler," and when he departed pronounced him a 
"modest but prudent man who did not try to force 
his attention on republicans." The country was as 
yet both provincial and sensitive. 

This sensitiveness was especially manifest toward 
the criticisms of England on the lack of literary and 
artistic taste in America. When the Edinburgh 
Revieiv or the Quarterly Revieiu spoke of ' ' the vernacu- 
lar of the former colonies," or of a book " written in 
the American tongue," when they lamented "the 
scarcity of all but mercantile and agricultural talents 
in the new world," the rage of the American press 
knew no bounds. Justice Marshall's " Life of Wash- 
ington " had produced a thrill of pride in America as 
the beginning of that form of composition, but the 
English reviews declared that it "was deficient in 
almost everything that constitutes historical accur- 
acy." John Quincy Adams had written his "Letters 
from Silesia," in a style which the reviewers pro- 
nounced "in general, very tolerable English, which, 
for American composition, is no moderate praise." 
These English strictures were felt to have reached 



THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 293 

positive insult in an article which asked, "But why 
slioulcl the Americans write books, when a six weeks' 
passage brings them in their own tongue, our sense, 
science and genius in bales and hogsheads. Prairies, 
steamboats, grist-mills, are their natural objects for 
centuries to come." 

Like most young and sensitive persons, the Amer- 
icans eagerly sought from every stranger his opinion 
of them and then were wounded by the reply. They 
objected to the criticisms of Thomas Ashe^ in his 
"Travels in America in 1806," and accused him of 
the theft of Dr. Goforth's bones of the mammoth 
which he had exhumed in Kentucky. They resented 
Fearon's^ descriptions of the conversations of men and 
women in America "which turned entirely on the 
ca^Dture of the Guerriere and the battle of New 
Orleans, the price of flour and cattle, and the bad con- 
duct and inferior nature of ' niggers.' " 

But still more galling were tlie criticisms of Mrs. 
Trollope, who, separating from her husband, came to 
Cincinnati, Ohio, to engage in the millinery trade. 
Failing in that, she returned to England and in 1832 
published her "Domestic Manners of the Americans," 
following it by several novels depicting the vulgar 
side of American life. She found plenty of material 
in the tobacco chewing and the spitting of the men ; 
in the pinched waists, the low shoes in winter, and 

^ See his "Travels in America in 1806, '" and "Memoirs of Mammoth 
and other Bones found in the Vicinity of the Ohio." In his later 
years he filled a clerkship in Dublin. 

2 Henry Bradshaw Fearon was an English physician sent to 
America by a prospective colony to choose a healthy spot if such 
could be found. See his "Narrative of a Journey of 5,000 Miles 
through the Eastern and Western States of America," (1818). 



^94 THE EXPANSION OP THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the mock modesty of the women. She especially saw 
through the pretense of finery and the attempted 
rivalry of the old world in the wilderness of the new. 
Harriet Martineau in 1837 had added to these gall- 
ing descriptions her "Society in America" and her 
"Retrospect of Western Travel," each in three 
volumes. A few years later, Capt. Marryat gained 
an unenviable immortality in America with his 
"Diary." People recalled the earlier sneers of this 
naval captain in England and his duel with the poet 
Willis, who chanced to be there and defended his coun- 
trymen. 

If the Americans had not been so sensitive and had 
dared assert their individuality, they would have 
acknowledged that they had as yet no national litera- 
ture in the young nation ; that their society was crude 
but vigorous from its environment and therefore 
hopeful for the future. There had been a kind of 
post-colonial literary group in and around New York, 
later known as the Knickerbockers, the best repre- 
sentative of which, Irving, had been "forgiven" by 
England "for having been born in America." The 
group had passed away by 1830 and left a hiatus 
between that date and 1840. The first stage of 
development, the hewing down of the forest and the 
building of the cabins, was passing rapidly. The 
transportation era was fairly inaugurated. The final 
age of utilitarianism was not yet dreamed of. 

Those who in this middle period waited patiently 
the comino; of a national literature in its clue time 
were encouraged l)y noting the great stimulating ideas 
and moving causes which marked the approach of the 



THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 295 

meridian of the century. Tlie church, freed from the 
state, had entered actively upon missionary work, 
many sects sometimes cooperating under one board. 
Gradually decentralization set in, various boards were 
organized, and a rivalry ensued which secured activity 
if not harmony. The slavery question came as 
another dividing and stimulating factor in the church. 
Liberal views in theology and creed appeared, but in 







A WESTERN MISSION 



an intellectual and humanitarian guise rather than 
the old political dress. A peaceful religious revolution 
ensued, resulting in Unitarianism, and the more ultra 
form. Transcendentalism. 

This period of intellectual unrest produced Chan- 
ning, Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, and to some extent 
influenced Hawthorne. It popularized in America a 
study of German literature and philosophy, which 



296 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ripened Longfellow and others. The kindred move- 
ment for the abolition of slavery brought out Whittier, 
while the political aspect of the question made Lowell 
prominent. The growing national pride and the 
victories of the people over nature aroused the desire 
to learn the cause of this rapid development. Records 
were searched, the collection of public papers inaugu- 
rated, and the writing of history begun. 

The newspapers kept pace with this advancement. 
The first thought had been that the proper home of 
newspapers would be at the fountain of political news 
— the national capital. But as the commercial in- 
terests were developed, it was seen that business must 
share with political matters and that the newspaper 
itself must become a great business venture. Grad- 
ually the hope of editors turned from Washington to 
the great commercial center of New York city. James 
Gordon Bennett left the national capital, and in 1835 
started a new penny paper, the New York Herald. 
Horace Greeley, a kind of tramp printer, started with 
his bundle over his shoulder for " the great metrop- 
olis," as he called New York city, and in 1841 founded 
the Tribune. A few years later Henry J. Raymond 
established the New York Times. 

The newspapers were greatly hampered by the lack 
of means to collect news. Frequently the editor was 
forced to insert such a line as, " No mails from the 
southward to-day." They therefore eagerly chron- 
icled the experiments for an improved method of 
signaling or conveying intelligence to which the 
fertile minds of American inventors now suddenly 
turned. 



THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 297 

Communication by semaphore or signal had been 
employed from early times in the old world. An 
improved method, by means of which it was thought 
the Lord's Prayer could be sent from Maine to New 
Orleans in one hour, was put on exhibition in New 
York city during the War of 1812, but nothing 
practical was evolved. The experiments of Joseph 
Henry ^ on the power of the electric magnet caused 
Harrison Gray Dyer '^ to string a wire on posts near 
New York city, and to use the discharge of the electric 
spark to color litmus paper. By making intervals of 
different lengths between discharges, he was able to 
communicate words. 

In 1837, S. F. B. Morse, professor of the art of 
design in the University of the City of New York, aided 
by some associates, exhibited an electric telegraph, 
transmitting signals through seventeen hundred feet of 
wire. The House of Representatives had requested 
the Secretary of the Treasury to investigate the feasi- 
bility of some system of telegraphy for the govern- 
ment. When Morse brought his apparatus before the 
committee of the House, the chairman was so im- 
pressed that he resigned and took stock in the 
enterprise. 

For four years Morse, although often reduced to 
penury, besieged Congress, and was finally granted 

^ Joseph Henry, physicist, was a professor in Princeton college, 
and after 1846 first director of the Smithsonian Institution at 
Washington. 

2 Dyer was driven from New York on a charge of conspiracy in 
having transmitted secret intelligence on his wires, and this is 
often cited as evidence of the superstition of the times. His perse- 
cution was due to the prevailing excitement about gambling in 
Wall street, since he was supposed to be in communication with 
the stock market of Philadelphia. 



298 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

$30,000 to aid in building an experimental line. A 
line of wires between Washington and Baltimore was 
first put underground in pipes, on wliicli $23,000 of 
the appropriation was spent, but the insulation failed. 
The wires w^ere then strung on poles and the news of 
the nomination of Jas. K. Polk for the presidency was 
sent from Baltimore to Washington.^ The govern- 
ment, although convinced of the practical working of 
Morse's invention, refused to buy his patent for 
$100,000 and it passed into private hands. For one 
year the experimental line was used free of charge, 
and then a tariff of one cent for four characters was 
placed upon it.^ 

Under private companies the "iron cord" was 
extended up and down the Atlantic coast, and in 1846 
to Pittsl)urg. The first message sent from there 
assured President Polk that the Pittsburg volunteers 
would soon be ready to leave for Mexico. News- 
papers in securing the news of the war paid large 
sums for transmission and so extended the use of the 
invention. Still, incredulous people doubted the pos- 
sibility of the contrivance, and comic papers showed 
idlers watching the wires to see the messages pass by. 

There was at first great rivalry between the O'Reilly 
and the Bain systems of telegraphy. Duplicate wires 

^ A few weeks later the official test was made. Miss Ellsworth, 
daughter of the commissioner of patents, who had brought to 
Morse the good news that his appropriation had passed Congress, was 
allowed to choose the message, and selected " What hath God 
wrought," from Numbers xxiii., 23. 

2 On the experimental line, numbers were used, each of which 
represented a sentence. The first paid message, "What time is 
it? " was sent to Baltimore by an unbeliever who was satisfied 
with the reply " One o'clock." Since the sender had used but two 
numbers, he demanded his half cent change. 



THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 209 

were strung between all the principal Atlantic cities. 
Each line catered to the newspapers and they in turn 
took sides, thereby precipitating a war of words. 
Additional enterprise was manifest from time to time. 
In 1846, Bennett had a speech by Clay telegraphed 




FROM A COMIC PAPER, 



from Washington and it appeared the following day in 
the Herald. But the general telegraph service was most 
inadequate and unreliable. On March 4th, 1849, the 
New York Tribune received a part of President 
Taylor's inaugural address by wire but the oj)erator 
stopped in the middle of a sentence and the editor 



300 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

added in a foot note next day: "We shall issue the 
remainder of this address as soon as received." The 
operators acted as reporters for the entire newspaper 
service and were many times at a loss for news. The 
Tribune once printed tlie following paragraph as the 
sole contribution of Boston for the day: " We have 
had no arrivals of importance since Sunday and no 
accounts of any disasters by the late storm. This 
day's rain has carried off most of the snow." The 
editor of the Tribune^ with pardonable irritation, adds : 
" Did any one ever imagine that the Telegraph was to 
be used for such stuff as this ? ' ' 

As has been indicated, the use of the magnetic 
telegraph was greatly stimulated by the desire to learn 
the news from the battlefields in Mexico ; also w^iether 
the United States was to have a war with Great 
Britain as a result of expansion in the Oregon country. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE OREGON EXPANSION 

So rapidly advanced the western line of settlement 
across the continent, and so rapidly national concept 
and national ambition grew, that within sixty years 
after the passage of the Declaration of Independence 
the United States had two claims for western terri- 
torial expansion pending at the same time. These 
claims were felt to be so well grounded that a political 
party in 1844 ventured to put forth the shibboleth, 
' ' The reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of 
Oregon." 

Why the "reoccupation" of Oregon? Spain, 
France, Russia, and England originally laid claim to 
parts of the North American Pacific coast, but by 
1844 the contest had narrowed to England and a new 
rival, the United States.^ These two had advanced 
side by side from the Atlantic across the continent, 
the boundary between them having been adjusted as 
growth demanded, during a period of sixty-one years. 
The general custom of nations had been to run boun- 
daries along watersheds for the sake of river naviga- 
tion on each side. If this practice, which had been 

^ France had finally disposed of her claims when she sold Louisi- 
ana. Spain yielded her rights to the northwest when she agreed 
with the United States to run the line of 1819 along the forty-second 
parallel from the Rockies to the Pacific, thus reserving California 
and giving Oregon to the United States. In 1824 Russia agreed to 
make no claims south of fifty-four degrees forty minutes if the 
United States would make none north of it. 

301 



302 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

followed largely as far as the Lake of the Woods, had 
been continued across the continent, a long and com- 
plicated boundary line would have resulted, as shown 
in the accompanying map. But the two nations had 
agreed in 1818 to make an arbitrary line of the forty- 
ninth parallel as far as the Rocky mountains, and to 




OREGOX— PROPOSED BOUNDARIES 



occupy jointly the country beyond until its growing 
pox^ulation should necessitate a settlement of the 
question. This line of forty-nine was first used by 
Great Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht, when France 
was given possession of all land lying to the south 
of it. 

By 1844 population demanded a settlement of the 
boundary from the mountains to the Pacific. Both 
England and the United States had claims to set 
forth. The claims of England to this land lying in 
the northwest were based upon its occupation by the 
Hudson Bay Company and by the explorations of 
Mackenzie.^ The organization, which grew into the 
gigantic monopoly known as the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, had been given supreme control in 1670 of all 
1 See chapter XVIII. ~^ 



THE OREGON EXPANSION 303 

lands bordering on the Hudson straits to trade in furs, 
minerals, and other commodities, in exchange for an 
annual payment of " two elks and two black beavers." 
With such slight compensation it was able to accu- 
mulate a stock of almost two million dollars, of which 
only fifty thousand was original capital, and to extend 
its dominion over a territory larger than the present 
United States. It crushed all competitors from 
Montreal to Vancouver Island and from the Great Salt 
Lake to the Yukon. 

To offset the explorations of Mackenzie, the United 
States pointed to the voyage of the Columbia and the 
explorations of Lewis and Clark, already described.^ 
The advances of the Hudson Bay Company had been 
duplicated on a smaller scale by the American Fur 
Company, organized in 1808, by John Jacob Astor, a 
German immigrant. He proposed to have the United 
States establish a line of forts from the Great Lakes to 
the mouth of the Columbia River, for the protection 
of the American fur traders. At the latter point he 
established Astoria as a station for the Pacific trade. 
He proposed to meet British monopoly with American 
monopoly. Congress passed an act excluding foreign- 
ers from trading in the Northwest territory, but it was 
ineffective, since licenses could be procured in the 
name of some American clerk. There were posts at 
La Crosse, Fond du Lac, Portage, Rice Lake, Depere, 
and minor points. Post Henry, on the Lewis river, 
was the most westerly station. In the War of 1812 
Astoria was occupied by the British, but it was 
restored at the end of the war, thus seeming to give 

1 See chapter XVIII. " 



304 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

English assent to the American claim. The United 
States, in 1819, had run with Spain the western line 
of the Louisiana purchase up the Rocky mountains 
and along the forty-second parallel to the Pacific. 
This was the southern limit of Oregon. Thus a 
claim was derived from the Spanish right of discovery 
through purchase. It was much weaker than the 
other arguments, but was added to them. The Rus- 
sians had been for many years encroaching on this 
territory, and the famous " Monroe doctrine " of 1820 
had been directed partly toward them to show that 
the Americans intended maintaining possession of the 
Oregon country. 

The trapping interests of the Hudson Bay Company 
would be best served by keeping the northwest an 
unbroken wilderness. The company had sufficient 
influence to keep out Englishmen, but could not keep 
out Americans. It was accused of circulating reports 
detrimental to the attractiveness of the country, and 
exaggerating the hostility of the Indians. Many 
travelers were turned back at Fort Hall, the American 
gatew^ay to the Oregon country. If rival companies 
were organized to compete for the fur trade, they 
were easily crowded out by the superior strength and 
precedence of the monopoly. It swallowed up the 
American company and finally secured possession of 
Astoria. When the number of Americans in Oregon 
had at last reached two hundred, there were probably 
five times that number of Hudson Bay employees in 
the region. But the result furnishes an object-lesson 
which can not be shown too often. The great 
monopoly fostered by the English government was 



THE OREGON EXPANSION 



305 



defeated by the individual American, backed solely 
by liis ambition and industry. The company slaugh- 
tered the buffalo and trapped the beaver, but never 
turned the fertile soil, harnessed the abundant water- 
power, nor built permanent homes. The riches of 
the fur trade must eventually vanish, but the 
resources of agriculture and manufacture are prac- 
tically inexhaustible. The trap cannot compete with 
the plow and the saw. The monopoly shut out 
English settlers, 
and England lost 
part of the Oregon 
country. 

The prevalent 
agitation of migra- 
tion to Oregon 
attracted the atten- 
tion of the mission 
boards to that 
country as a field 
for their labors. 




OREGOX IXDIANS KA.TIX1; DKAl) WHALE' 



It was said that 

some Flathead Indians came all the way to St. Louis 
in search of the white man's Gospel. In 1834, the 
Rev. Jason Lee came to the company post at Fort Van- 
couver by sea with a trader, and began preaching to 
the settlers from Canada along the Willamette. Two 
years later, Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Rev. Henry 
Spaulding, with their wives, came across the plains 
and mountains, past Fort Hall, where an effort was 

* From an old wood cut. Such orgies were shown as arguments 
for sending missionaries to the savages. 



306 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

made by the company agents to discourage them and 
turn them back, as so many had done before, and 
finally reached the Walla Walla Indians. Here 
Whitman established the mission of Waiilatpu and 
Spaulding another on the Clear Water river, a few 
miles from the present site of Lewiston, Idaho. These 
men and women labored in the fields and taught the 
savages civilization as well as doctrine. 

In 1840 Lee returned to the States, and, by his 
descriptions of the Oregon country and its needs, 
secured money and a colony of missionaries who went 
back to Oregon with him. As yet there was no indi- 
cation that a rivalry was coming between the British 
company and the American missionaries. But the 
governor of Winnipeg was wise and offered liberal 
inducements to Canadian colonists who would go to 
the Columbia. After six years' residence in Oregon, 
Whitman heard of the approach of an English colony 
of eighty persons from the Red river region, and made 
haste to start for Washington to spread the alarm. The 
journey of four thousand miles by way of Santa Fe was 
accomplished in midwinter and under great difficulties. 

In the Ashburton treaty just completed, the United 
States had agreed with England to a continuation of 
the joint occupation,^ and Whitman could only lay 

1 In the treaty of 1842, Lord Ashburton and Daniel Webster set- 
tled the long dispute concerning which was the true St. Croix river 
on the northeast boundary between Canada and the United States. 
They permitted the joint occupation of the country on the north- 
west beyond the Rockies to continue. Much discussion has arisen 
concerning the influence which Whitman exerted in Washington. 
It is doubtful whether he did more than to give the testimony of an 
eye-witness to the desirability of the Oregon country. Whitman's 
massacre by the Indians after his return to Oregon has given a 
certain romantic tinge to all his actions. 



THE OREGON EXPANSION 



307 



before President Tyler the truth about the desirability 
of the Oregon country. Whitman had printed circu- 
lars and distributed them along the border on his 
journey east, announcing that he would lead an 
American colony to the Columbia during the coming 
spring. In June, 1843, his caravan of two hundred 
wagons, almost nine hundred people, and thirteen 
hundred head of cattle, set out from Westport, 
near where Kansas City now 
stands, and eventually 
reached its Oregon destina- 
tion. That colony not only 
demonstrated the possibility 
of going to Oregon by land, 
but it also contained many 
men who became the organ- 
izers of the later state. 

Over the Oregon trail thus 
marked out, company after 
company of emigrants passed 
and added to the increasing 
desire of the United States 
to possess the land. The 

inherited Revolutionary feeling against England, 
always just beneath the surface, burst out in sud- 
den fury. Cheap "patriotism'' ran riot.^ Jingoes 

^ As a sample of the rhodomontade of some of these swashbucklers 
tills extract from a speech in Congress must serve: '' We shall gain 
territory. . . . We must march from ocean to ocean. We must 
fulfill what the American poet has said of us from one end of the 
confederation to the other, 

'The broad Pacific chafes our strand, 
We hear the wide Atlantic roar.' 

We must march from Texas straight to the Pacific ocean and be 
bounded only by the roaring wave. ' ' 




THE DISPUTED OKEGON COUXTKY 



308 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

frothed at the mouth. Speeches were made in Con- 
gress calling for thirty thousand rifles in the valley 
of the Oregon to annihilate the encroaching Hud- 
son Bay Company and to assert the right to the 
territory based on purchase, exploration, and settle- 
ment. Spain had claimed, although not under an 
unclouded title, the coast as far north as fifty-four 
degrees and forty minutes, the old southern boundary 
of Russian America. To " reoccupy" Oregon, there- 
fore, would be to exclude the English and to take pos- 
session of the original claim of the Spanish, which we 
were said to have acquired with Louisiana. On the 
other hand, England claimed by occupation all the 
land to the north of the Columbia, and proposed 
that river as a final boundary line. The territory 
in dispute embraced over one thousand miles of the 
Pacific coast. 

During the year 1845 and a part of 1846, the 
scales of war or peace poised in the balance. The 
United States gave notice of the termination of the 
joint occupation agreement, and increased her claim 
to the land by the addition of five thousand immi- 
grants. A compromise was at last arranged, by 
which the United States exchanged her theoretical 
claim of "fifty-four forty" for the better founded 
extension of the old line of forty-nine degrees. Eng- 
land yielded the country embraced between forty-nine 
and the Columbia river in return for the whole of 
Vancouver Island and the payment of $650,000 
damages to the Hudson Bay Company. Twelve years 
later, war again threatened because of the uncertain 
southern boundary of Vancouver Island. The dispute 



THE OREGON EXPANSION 309 

was peacefully settled in 1871 by the Emperor of 
Germany as arbiter. 

From the territory thus peacefully acquired the 
states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho have been 
made. The national boundary was thus fully rounded 
out in the northwest ; but if the line of American 
domain could have been extended to the famous 
*' fifty-four forty," it would have touched southern 
Alaska and the continental union of the United States 
would then have been complete. 



CHAPTER XXVI 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 



To suppose that the expansion of the American 
people in both territory and union could be accom- 
plished without internal dissension, would be to over- 
look the tendencies of human nature. Extension 
geographically always brings the danger of the sepa- 
ration of divergent parts, especially if the geographic 
lines of separation coincide with any lines of inherited 
differences. It would be much more proper to speak 
of the expansion across the American continent of 
two peoples living under tlie same government, but 
divided into a north and a south. The inherited 
feeling between dissenter and churchman was inten- 
sified by climatic influences, which made the one 
frugal and the other hospitable ; the one commercial 
and the other agricultural ; the one austere and the 
other genial. It was also true that climate made the 
employment of slave labor unprofitable in the one and 
profitable in the other, but to consider slavery as the 
sole cause of the discord is to consider immediate instead 
of remote causes. For almost a century this jealous 
fear of supremacy continued between the factions, 
and in no place were its effects more evident than in 
the struggle for the control of representation in the 
national government. 

Considering population as the basis of representa- 
tion, and territory as necessary for the growth of 

310 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 311 

population, the southerner could not with any satis- 
faction view the Louisiana purchase as it took final 
shape. It was true that the demand for Louisiana 
had arisen in the southwest, but the line of 1819 as 
finally settled limited southern expansion to the 
Sabine on the west. The purchase had assumed the 
shape of a huge triangle, whose upper line extended 
from the head of the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean, 
but which narrowed down southwardly to the state of 
Louisiana alone. South of the "Missouri compromise 
line" which limited slavery and southern interests, 
were less than 224,445 square miles. North of the line 
lay over 964,667 square miles. That meant one or 
possibly two states for the south and at least six or 
seven for the north. ^ 

Yet even here the thought that the extension of the 
southern national boundary line over Texas was due 
entirely to the desire of the southern section for 
political power falls short of the broader view of the 
laws of expansion. The people went up and took 
possession of the land. Statesmen could foster but 
could not compel the migration of Americans across 
the Sabine unless the expansive instinct had so drawn 
them. Forbidden trade was doubly attractive to the 



1 The Missouri compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in all states 
north of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes except m 
the state of Missouri. The original understood division between 
free and slave states was the boundary between Pennsylvania and 
Maryland. By the ordinance of 1787 which forbade slavery north 
of the Ohio, that river became an extension of the dividing line. 
Since the Ohio bends to the south and the Missouri line ran from 
its mouth, or almost on the southern boundary of Virginia, the 
southern people felt that they had been cheated of a strip as ^vlde 
as that state. These extensions of the line dividing the two sections 
were due to circumstances at the time each was decided upon. 



312 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

peripatetic merchant of the frontier, while grassy 
plains and fertile lowlands allured his companion, the 
"squatter." 

The vast Mexican region beyond the Sabine was 
ruled from distant Chihuahua in true Spanish style. 
Military and ecclesiastical law held full sway ; civil 
law was unknown. Foreigners without passports were 
supposed to be imprisoned ; trading across the Sabine 
was prohibited. The thinly populated region and 
the adjacent parts of the Gulf invited pirates and 
filibustering expeditions. Several small expeditions 
followed that of Burr, and several incipient rebellions 
arose, in all of which Americans were present.^ So 
strong had American interests become in S^Danish 
Texas by 1819, that Henry Clay and others objected 
to the Sabine instead of the Rio Grande as the line 
which finally settled the disputed Louisiana boundary 
and really exchanged Texas for Florida. In this 
negotiation with Spain, the United States wanted 
both Florida and Texas, but the more pressing need 
was for Florida. Texas was to be left to the course 
of time. 

In 1820 Mexico was strong enough to revolt against 
Spain, and in four years, after four changes of 
government, the United States of Mexico was created, 
including Texas. At this time there were probably 

^ In local histories, see descriptions of the pirates of Barrataria, of 
Jean Lafitte, of the adventures of Toledo, Berry, Philip Nolan, 
Ellis P. Bean, and of James Long. President Madison issued a 
proclamation, September 1, 1815, against Texan expeditions organ- 
izing in the United States. In 1819 the Spanish minister turned in 
a list of thirty-three Spanish vessels captured by freebooters and 
brought into ports of the United States. He added a list of twenty- 
eight vessels fitted out in these ports to prey upon Spanish vessels 
or dependencies. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 313 

three thousand Americans beyond the Sabine, living 
mostly at Nacogdoches and along the road to San 
Antonio de Bexar. The Spanish were gathered about 
this latter point and at Goliad farther down the San 
Antonio river. Mexico was desirous of further peo- 
pling Texas with foreigners and gave large tracts of 
land to emprcsarios (contractors) who engaged to 
settle families upon them. The grant made to Moses 
Austin^ was the first, but soon there appeared grants 




AUSTIN, TiiXAS, IN 1840 

to De Witt, of Missouri ; Ross and Leftwich, of Ten- 
nessee ; Milam, of Kentucky ; Burnet, of Ohio ; Thorn, 
of New York ; McMullin, Powers, and Hewitson, of 
Ireland ; Cameron, of Scotland, and others, until 
almost the entire state was so parceled out. 

About 1825 the rush for Texas began. No such 

^ Moses Austin, of Connecticut, after engaging in lead mining in 
the west, went to Texas, and in 1820 secured permission to colonize 
three hundred American families near Bexar. His son, Stephen 
F. Austin, carried out the plan after his father's death. The 
principal town in his grant was San Felipe de Austin (now Austin). 



314 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

spectacle had ever before been seen. " Gone to 
Texas" was written upon the door of many a deserted 
dwelling of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. *' Go 
to Texas" was a poxDular slang phrase. On the 
western steamboats the ofhcers' quarters on the hur- 
ricane deck from their remoteness were called ' ' the 
texas." When a man wished to coerce his family or 
friends, he threatened to go to Texas. It was felt 
to be beyond the natural limits of the world. The 
glamour which had attracted Aaron Burr still hovered 
over the mystic land of the southwest. So rapidly did 
it allure Americans to the pathway which led down 
the Mississippi to the Red river, up that stream to 
Shreveport and across into Texas, that their number 
had increased to twenty thousand by 1830, and 
Mexico became alarmed and tried to stop the coming. 
Perhaps she remembered the exj^erience of Spain and 
the results of encouraging the settling of Americans 
across the Mississipj)i a decade before.^ Numerous 
projects accompanied this migration to anew country. 
Lundy, the Abolition agitator, made three journeys 
to Texas hoping to secure lands for a colony of 
negroes. He found nearly every state in the Union 
represented among the inhabitants. Many free 
negroes were living on small farms ; in some cases 
blacks and whites together. He was disgusted with 
the "scratching" of the soil by the Mexicans with 
their old-fashioned plows, horrified at the bloodshed 
of their bull-fights, and charmed with the richness of 
the country and the possibilities of its future. The 
resident Americans were inconvenienced by a lack of 
^ See chapter XVI. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 



315 



utensils. Farmers had to go five miles to grind their 
scythes. During Lundy's stay the cholera raged, with 
no physicians, and no remedies save camphor, lauda- 
num, and mustard. 

Friction was constantly felt between the Mexicans 
and Americans. Two of the latter were thrown into 
prison for refusing to uncover and kneel when the 
sacred "host" was passing in procession. In the 
election of 1834, but one of the three members from 
Texas elected to the state legislature of Coahuila and 



, -~pM|»-««j-T.« 









PAPER MONKY OF THE TEXAN REPUBLIC 

Texas was an American. Lundy said that they com- 
plained that the "foreigners have no representation 
at all!" After weeks of w^aiting, during which the 
Mexican governor found the weather at times too hot 
and at times too cold to attend to official business, 
Lundy succeeded in getting a grant of interior land.^ 
The deed was written on a sheet of stamped paper 
which cost the Abolitionist three of his few dollars. 



^ Lundy, in 1837, published a pamphlet entitled "The War in 
Texas . . . showing that this contest is a crusade against Mexico 
set on foot and supported by slave-holders, land-speculators, etc., 
in order to re-establish, extend, and perpetuate the system of slavery 
and slave trade." 



316 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

But as soon as tlie rush from the southern states 
began, "the vile project of the Texas invaders" to 
introduce slavery, as he said, prevented the consum- 
mation of his plan. 

No sooner did Mexico try to close the door against 
this influx of Americans than the natural antipathy 
between Saxon and Gaul became manifest. The 
grasping record of the Americans made tlie Mexicans 
fear the loss of Texas, and color was lent to the fear 
by the repeated offers of the United States to buy as 
far as the Rio Grande.^ The Indians feared the 
Americans and did not annoy their settlements, and 
to the Mexicans these two appeared leagued together. 
The Mexican government therefore stopped further 
colonization, canceled all but three of the land grants, 
forbade the importation of slaves, closed all save one 
of the ports along the American side, placed the 
ordinary tariff on implements and articles commonly 
brought in free by Americans, and was accused of 
trying to encourage the colonization of criminals and 
beggars in Texas. ^ 



1 In one of these offers the United States rose to five million dol- 
lars, but to no purpose. 

2 " It is well known that Texas has already received a very con- 
siderable proportion of its present population in emigrants from the 
United States. . . Santa Fe (also) may be considered in some 
sense an American town, the stores being filled with American 
goods and the streets with American people. The Americans have 
explored tlie whole country from the sources of the Rio del Norte 
to its mouth in search of furs and in pursuit of a lucrative traffic. 
There are few of the towns of New Mexico in which more or less of 
them are not to be found. Constantly oppressed by the ignorant, 
miserable, bigoted, petty despots of these semi-barbarous regions, 
who assume to be republican rulers of an amicable sister republic, 
the United States emigrants, like the Jews, multiply and thrive 
under the extortions and cruelties practiced upon them." From 
Flint's Geography (1832), p. 462. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 



317 



It might be argued that Mexico had aright to legis- 
late for her own territory, but Americans have always 
insisted that such legislation be just, and that the 
justice be determined by the American standard. 
Therefore, headed by Houston,^ they defied these 
restrictions, swarmed over the borders, and car- 
ried on a contraband trade under the protection of 
cannon. When Texas openly revolted against Mexico 
in 1835, two comjDanies of New Orleans volunteers 




BUINS OF THE ALAMO 



participated, besides other companies from Mobile 
and Kentucky, probably eight hundred in all. An 
officer of the United States army searching for 
deserters found two hundred serving in the Texan 



^ Samuel Houston was a native of Virginia but was reared on the 
frontier of Tennessee. He rose to the governorship of that state, 
but suddenly deserted his office and family and went to live among 
the Cherokee Indians, adopting their garb. Going to Texas in 1832, 
he took an active part in the revolution, and was eventually elected 
the first president of the republic; after the admission of the state 
he served many years in the United States Senate. 



318 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

army, the commander of which refused to send them 
back. The names of Davy Crockett/ James Bowie/ 
and other frontier fighters, are connected with this 
struggle and with the massacres of the Alamo and of 
Goliad.^ 

Of the total population, only about one-fourth were 
Americans and few of these possessed citizenship. 
Yet tliey made themselves the governing class. 
When in March, 1836, at New Washington, a town on 
the Brazos river, fifty-eight delegates declared the 
independent state of Texas, only three of them were 
Mexicans. The others had come from the United 
States, chiefly from the southern states. It is not 
remarkable that Texas immediately sought annexa- 
tion with this country. 

Annexation was opposed in the United States by 
sympathizers with the anti-slavery agitation which 
had arisen a few years before. It was true that the 
Texas constitution, framed under alarm at this hostile 
movement, had fastened slavery securely on the state. 
It provided that slaves born to life servitude could 

1 Perhaps the most picturesque frontier character is Davy Crockett 
of Tennessee. He had little education but was a skillful shot and 
a noted story-teller. He served several terms in Congress, and 
eventually joined the Texans in their struggle. 

2 James Bowie of Georgia, at one time in a general fight after a 
duel, killed a man with a knife which iiad been made from a black- 
smith's file. Its shape was copied by cutlers, and thus originated 
the famous "bowie-knife." 

3 The Mexicans under Santa Anna, wiio liad practically seized the 
Mexican government, put to death in the Alamo mission at San 
Antonio one hundred and eighty-two Americans, some of them 
after having surrendered. At Goliad he executed three hundred 
prisoners. He was captured soon after by the Texans, but his life 
was spared and he was sent to the United States, where he was 
received by President Jackson and was eventually returned to 
Mexico. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 



319 



not be emancipated ; that the Texan congress could 
not free a shave nor could an owner do so without the 
consent of the congress ; that no free negro should be 
permitted in Texas without the permission of the con- 
gress ; and that the importation of slaves from any 
country other than the United States should consti- 
tute piracy. Regardless of the slavery question, many 
hesitated to annex Texas so long as she was a revolt- 





m 


a 






^ 




-- "^ 


=^__^' 


'gll^>^ 


-=^- 


§ 


___ -~_^ 


is 


^^1^ 




-''- 


— — 


-. \ 



TEXAS— FIRST CAPITOL, OF THE REPUBLIC* 



ing territory in war with the parent country, although 
her independence was acknowledged by Congress. 

During the ten years in which Texas maintained 
her independence through a series of threatenings 
and fiascos between herself and Mexico,^ the United 
States government preserved a kind of neutrality, but 
actions by the people j^lainly showed the trend of 
events. Men were openly recruited in New Orleans 
to aid the Texans, and at one time General Gaines 

*From Lubbock's "Six Decades in Texas." Several of the illus- 
trations in this chapter are due to the courtesy of Dr. George P. 
Garrison, of the University of Texas. 

1 At one time the Texans tried to extend their territory to Santa 
Fe in what President Jackson called "a wild goose campaign," but 
the expedition brQUght no permanent results. 



320 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

was sent by the United States across the Sabine with 
an armed force "to anticipate threatened Indian 
hostilities." Conservative annexationists revived the 
abandoned claim that the Louisiana purchase had 
extended to the Rio Grande, and so brought out the 
cry of "reannexation of Texas." At last the mask 
was thrown off, the bogie-man of foreign intervention 
was again brought out,^ and the United States, after 
years of quibbling, yielded to the wishes of material 
interests and annexed the now Americanized Texas. ^ 
England, as usual, protested, and Mexico withdrew 
her minister, but the United States had added almost 
four hunded thousand square miles to her national 
territory.^ 

It seemed to be tlie fate of the United States to 
inherit with each accession of territory a boundary 
dispute. The vastness of the country, the limited 
exploration, the lack of surveys, and especially in the 
case of Spanish territory the unsettled and shifting 



^ In his annual message to Congress in 1845, President Polk said : 
" We may rejoice that the tranquil and pervading influence of the 
American principle of self-government was sufficient to defeat the 
purposes of British and French interference, and that the almost 
unanimous voice of the people of Texas has given to that interfer- 
ence a peaceful and effective rebuke." 

2 In 1820 a Spaniard in New Orleans wrote to the king of Spain 
begging him not to give Florida to the Americans, since it would 
make them hope to acquire Texas later. " The Anglo-Americans," 
said he, " trampling under foot the sacred rights of property recog- 
nized by all other nations, have poured in great numbers across 
the pretended boundary of the Sabine river and now shamelessly 
declare their purpose to penetrate even to the heart of the kingdom 
of Mexico." 

^ These figures include not only the present area of Texas, but 
almost one hundred thousand square miles lying northwest, which 
that state claimed and which the United States purchased at a cost 
of ten million dollars to add to the public domain. See the map 
on page 332. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 



321 



ownership, made such disputes well-nigh unavoidable. 
The line between the jointly represented states of 
Coahuila and Texas had never been permanently 
settled on either the Nueces or Rio Grande rivers, 
although the Nueces had been understood when the 
two states were formally separated by Texas. On 



DKPAimKK OF THi: T T! I f,.\M IPIha TGirNTi:ri;s \-(ai Mi:Xi((,, 




\..U, J.AW.S. »> 



maps of the day the country between the two rivers 
was marked '' Immense droves of wild animals." It 
was a barren tract almost devoid of inhabitants, yet 
human nature was simply asserting itself when the 
Texans claimed to the Rio Grande. It made a much 
longer and better boundary, and rounded out their 
state. 



322 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

President Polk sent a special ambassador to Mexico 
to claim redress for " the grievous wrongs perpetrated 
upon our citizens throughout a long period of years," 
including this boundary question. Mexico was in the 
midst of one of her periodic revolutions and could do 
nothing. Meanwhile, as if to invite a quarrel, the 
United States forces moved into the disputed strip 
and were attacked by Mexicans who crossed the Rio 
Grande. The Americans drove them back across the 
river and occupied the town of Matamoras. There 
was thus some question of the truth of President 
Polk's message to Congress saying that "after 
repeated mena.ces, Mexico had passed the boundary of 
the United States, has invaded our territory and shed 
American blood upon American soil."^ The result- 
ing Mexican war is deplorable : 

Because it furnished to Europe the spectacle of 
sister rei)ublics, each of which had gained independ- 
ence through great effort, now warring on each 
other. 

Because the United States was so much stronger in 
arms, resources, and intelligence, that it will always 
bear the suspicion of being a war for spoils. 

Because the strip of country in question was not 
worth the war. 

Because the war was sustained largely in the south 
through sympathy with the Texan immigrants, and 
the anti-slavery element of the north claimed that it 
was a war for the prolongation of slavery and that 

^ Abraham Lincoln, a Whig representative from Illinois, brought 
only ridicule upon himself by introducing resolutions calling upon 
the President to designate the "spot" where the invasion had taken 
place. A man who opposes war runs comiter to public feeling. 



THE ACQUISITION OF TEXAS 323 

tlie government had become a tool in the hands of 
that power. ^ 

Because the war, therefore, instead of drawing 
more closely the bonds of union, which is at last the 
only consolation in a foreign war, widened still more 
the breach between tlie two sections. 

Because the United States gave further grounds to 
the charge of a war for spoils by claiming as fruit of 
the contest the Mexican province of Upper California. 

^ The population of Texas was made up not only of southerners, 
but also of emigrants from the northern states as well as many from 
England. However, the southern people predominated, and the 
anti-slavery element was arrayed against the war Lowell devoted 
part of the first series of " The Biglow Papers " to ridiculing it. 



'yA^ 


1 


raB^?s*-«5i^&-m 


M^^ 



tTNITED STATES DESPOILIXG MEXICO 

Mr. Trist (very firmly,) " My Government, Gentlemen, will take ' nothin ' shorter. 

—From a comic paper, 1847. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 

The invading Spaniards under Cortez gave the 
name *' California " to the North American coast of 
the Pacific ocean because of its fancied resemblance 
to "the great island of California," described in a 

popular romance of 
that time. Spanish 
California included 
all land lying west 
of the Rocky moun- 
tains, and was 
■ |-HH||||||| 1 roughly divided into 

" lliltlMlll! J^ Upper and Lower 

California at the 
liead of the gulf 
bearing that name. 
San Diego, in Up- 
per California, was settled about 1769, and Spanish 
dominion was extended northward until it came into 
contact with the Russian and English fur-trading 
companies. 

The Spanish government was administered in each 
province by an alcalde, or mayor, who resided at the 
presidio, or military post. Within the adobe walls, 
some twelve feet high, were located the barracks, 
administrative houses, and a chapel. The alcalde was 
also the official head of tlie pueblo or Spanish settle- 

324 




VICKROY'.S PALACE, SANTA FE 



THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 



325 



ment adjacent to the fort. The most important 
'presidios were at San Diego, Santa Barbara, and 
at Yerba Buena, afterwards named San Francisco. 

The national religion of Spain was Roman Catholic, 
and under the protection of the government the Fran- 
ciscan monks had established in California about 
twenty missions. The mission consisted of a church, 




HO^E^tt 



SA>f GABKIEL MISSION* 



cloisters, workshop, and storehouse, arranged about 
an o^Den court. The converted Indians were emx^loyed 
under the direction of the fathers in tilling the fields 
and cultivating the vineyards. Their little thatched 
conical huts, constituting the rancheria, or village, 



* The illustrations of the old Spanish southwest in this chapter 
appear through the kindness of Dr. M. L. Miller, department of 
Anthropology, the University of Chicago. 



326 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

were gathered near the mission, the whole under the 
protection of the lyresidio. 

The Spanish soldier did not add as much to civili- 
zation as did the priest. A few soldiers brought their 
wives to the presidios, but there were no schools and 
no attempt at agriculture by the Spaniards. The 
dull days were siDent in gambling, horse-racing, cock- 
fighting, and dancing. Horses and cattle were intro- 
duced, but in 
too great num- 
bers for imme- 
diate use. Be- 
ing allowed to 
run wild, their 
numbers great- 
ly increased, 
and by 1826 
jg. ■"..HP'" "* \ , .. ships began 

K --' ^^^j^stsiai calling^ at the 

KiiNs OK si'AMSH M18S1U.N, NEW MEXICO ciinerent v^aii- 

fornia ports for 
the hides and tallow of the wild cattle.^ Hides passed 
as current money, at the rate of two dollars each. 

The news of the revolt of Mexico reached this upper 
province in 1822, and the Mexican flag quietly sup- 
planted the red and yellow of the Spaniard. During 
the ensuing years of peace, a number of Americans 
found their way over the mountains and around 
by vessel to the fertile valleys of California. Many 

^ Of the sixty-one vessels which entered Cahfornia ports between 
1836 and 1840, twenty-six were American. One of these was the 
Pilgrim, of Boston, in which sailed Richard Henry Dana. He 
described his experiences in "Two Years Before the Mast." 




THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 327 

married Californian wives and applied for citizen- 
ship, never returning to the states. The strict 
law concerning foreigners coming into Mexican ter- 
ritory was never rigidly enforced in this outlying 
district. There was a little group of these aliens at 
Monterey, but more at New Helvetia, on the Amer- 
ican river, commonly called Sutter's Fort.^ 

Sutter had proved to the Mexican government 
that he was a good Roman Catholic and a desirable 
resident and had been 
granted land in the 
Sacramento valley. 
He later added to his 
territory by a purchase 
from the Russians. In 
1840 he built a fort at 
the junction of the 
American river with 
the Sacramento. A 
space about five hun- 
dred feet lono; and one 
hundred and fifty feet 
wide was enclosed by 

adobe walls eighteen feet high and three feet thick, 
the whole being guarded by brass and iron cannon. 
Sutter ruled as potentate over the civilized Indians 
and the white people gathered at his fort, purchasing 

1 John Augustus Sutter, born of Swiss parentage, came to Amer- 
ica and entered the St. Louis and Santa Fe trade. Crossing the 
mountains he embarked in the Pacific coast trade, and being ship- 
wrecked at what is now San Francisco Bay, went inland to found 
his trading post of New Helvetia (New Switzerland). A California 
correspondent of the New York Tribune of April 7, 1849, gave the 
pronunciation Sooter, as Sutter himself called it. 




A BUILDING IX SUTTKR S FORT 



1 



328 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

their products and shipping his goods to San Fran- 
cisco in his own sailing vessels. 

In the meantime the Americans were invading 
California in another direction along the Sante Fe 
trail. In 1819 Arkansas was made into a territory 
and the frontiersmen of Kentucky and Tennessee 
found new homes along the Arkansas and White 
rivers. Those with a mercantile instinct went up the 
Canadian, a branch of the Arkansas, and across to 
Spanish Santa Fe, to engage in a trade long forbidden 

-_ - ^ -., by Spain. Since 

only a limited 
^ amount of mer- 
^Jdfl| chandise could 
9HH| b e transported 
rB I . rlTltfTT^KLll^'vfK ^^^ ^^^^^ manner 

f ..m^^"^^ ll^^^^^^m ^^J streams, the 
k ^^^^^BI^'HH Santa Fe trade 

L m soon found a new 

■H^IHHiHHHK M ^^^y directly 

OLD AND NEW AKCHITECTURE, ALBUQUERUUK, N. MEX. tlClOSS lUe pi cll- 

ries in great 
wagons drawn by mules and oxen. It grew to large 
proportions after the independence of Mexico. Amidst 
the crack of the long whips, the cry of "All's set" 
passed about, and the great caravans moved out from 
Independence, Missouri, in four parallel columns, with 
guards riding in front. About one hundred and fifty 
miles distant, the line halted for the "catch up," before 
starting on the seventy days' journey. A "Santa Fe 
assortment" consisted of woolen and cotton goods, 
silks, hardware, and notions. On the return journey, 



THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 



329 



gold-dust or bullion, furs, buffalo rugs, wool, and 
Mexican blankets were brought back. The provisions 
consisted of bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, and salt. 
Buffalo would furnish fresh meat on the way. The 
cost of the goods was increased about one hundred per 
cent by the journey, but nevertheless the trade grew 
from about fifteen 
thousand dollars 
in 1822 to over a 
million dollars in 
1846. 

The Mexicans 
became alarmed 
at these invasions 
of California. 
The revolution in 
Texas was an 
alarming object- 
lesson. But when 
the Mexican gov- 
ernor of Califor- 
nia in 1840, on 
the rumor of an 
American upris- 
ing, attempted to 

banish forty foreigners, he accomplished little save 
furnishing a basis for claims of the United States 
against his government. At one time the Stars and 
Stripes were raised at Monterey by an over-zealous 
naval commander, but taken down with an apology. 
Some Americans came down from Oregon. Expedi- 
tions carrying women and children ventured directly 




330 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

across the Rocky mountains. California could not 
remain in its uncertain ownership. It was called 
" Naboth's vineyard" by the Americans who thought 
that France or England coveted it. Lord Palmers- 
ton's defiant speech in the House of Lords was quoted 
and burlesqued in a cartoon which showed him and 
General Taylor in a boxing match. 

Covetousness, indeed, may have added to the desire 
in the United States for war with Mexico ; certainly, 
as the war progressed, the natural longing for Cali- 
fornia took shape in a popular demand for that 
country as a prize of war. General Kearny^ was 
instructed to invade California from Fort Leaven- 
worth, and to pass through New Mexico to the Pacific, 
conquering the inhabitants and establishing govern- 
ment in the name of the United States of America. 
Commodores Sloat and Stockton were sent to take 
possession of the settlements along the coast. ^ 

In the meantime John C. Fremont, the American 
explorer, had been ordered by the California author- 
ities at Monterey to leave the San Joaquin valley 
where his expedition was resting. He refused, and 
erected a fort about thirty miles from Monterey, over 
which he raised the American flag. Subsequently 

^When the War of 1812 began, Stephen W. Kearny, of New 
Jersey, entered the army as captain of volunteers and remained in 
the service. At the beginning of the Mexican war he was in com- 
mand of the western division and was ordered to take possession of 
New Mexico. In the progress of the war he served in Mexico and 
died of disease contracted tiiere. 

-Sloat, who was in command of the Pacific squadron, was ordered 
to occupy Monterey, upon rumor that the British admiral intended 
to take possession of that port. Stockton sailed around Cape Horn 
to serve as commander-in-chief of the Pacific squadron. He 
directed the later movements in California and sent a relief detail 
to meet Kearny. 



THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 



331 



he withdrew into Oregon, but in 1846 returned under 
government orders ' ' to watch over the American 
interests. ' ' He cooperated with the revolting Amer- 
icans who raised their * ' bear flag ' ' and erected an 
independent state, July 4, 1846, with Fremont as 
governor. When Commodore Sloat seized Monterey, 




SITE or SPANISH FORT, MONTEREY 



Fremont joined him and raised a California battalion. 
He was made military and civil governor by Stock- 
ton after the news of the Mexican war reached Cali- 
fornia.^ 

*John Charles Fremont, a Georgian, was connected with the 
United States topographical surveys in the southern states, and in 
1842 was given charge of an expedition to examine the South Pass 
as a route to Oregon. He subsequently made several expeditions, 
both official and private, until he had traversed many parts of 
the western land and had gained for himself the title of "Path- 



332 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



When Kearny arrived, after suffering great hard- 
ships on his overland journey, a dispute arose between 
him and Stockton, but communication with Washing- 
ton was eventually established and order ensued/ In 
the treaty of peace with Mexico that country was 
despoiled of all the land lying west of the Rio Grande 
and north of the Gila. The Americans ran the 
boundary line at will, bending it southward to 

embrace the port of San Diego. 
They added over five hundred 
thousand square miles to the 
public domain. A few years 
later a small tract south of the 
Gila, into which a few Amer- 
icans had ventured, was added 
by purchase from Mexico for 
the sum of ten million dollars.^ 
This was in addition to the 
THE TEXAS AND a^iFOKNiA EX- fi f t G c u milliou prcvlously 

given for California proper. 
Punishing an enemy by depriving him of territory is 

finder." Ten thousand copies of the report of his first expedition 
were printed and distributed by Congress. They greatly en- 
couraged western migration. Fremont's achievements inspired 
Whittier's "Tlie Pass of the Sierra" and laudations from other 
pens, but old trappers who had traversed the mountains alone and 
unaided were inclined to believe his accomplishments overestimated. 

^ In the contest between Stockton and Kearny, Fremont acknowl- 
edged the orders of the former, and was later tried by court-martial 
and sentenced to be dismissed from the service. The penalty was 
remitted by President Polk, but Fremont resigned. 

^ The negotiations were conducted by James Gadsden, minister to 
Mexico, and the land is called "Gadsden's Purchase." The enor- 
mous price paid for forty-five thousand square miles of poor land 
will always give critics of America ground for claiming that it was 
largely conscience money. They also say that the Americans 
always begin diplomatic negotiations by asking "How much will 
you take?" 




THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 



333 



a rule of nations in the old world. From an American 
standpoint, the spoliation of weak Mexico is inexcus- 
able save on the old law of the fittest coming into its 
own. *' Manifest destiny" will always accompany 
the greater force of arms. The "duty" of the 
United States to take outlying provinces under its 
protection rests upon the demands of American trade 
and American interests. 

More Americans hurried to the new possessions. 
They found the people living much as their ancestors 
had lived in 
old Spain. In 
topography 
and climate the 
region much 
resembled 
Spain. Moun- 
tains and high 
plains gave op- 
portunity for 
irrigation. In 
the valleys 

herding was followed. All carrying was done on 
pack-mules. The Americans likened the adobe built 
cities, when seen at a distance, to an extensive brick- 
yard. In strange looking boxes mounted on solid 
wooden wheels, whole families came to church or to 
celebrate their many saint days with fireworks, pro- 
cessions, and bonfires. Their churches, with the bat- 
tered bells and carved beams, appeared to belong to 
another world. The people dressed in fantastic colors, 
and seemed, in their windowless houses, to regard 




THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIK 



334 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



mirrors as the criterion of wealth. In their little 
gardens they raised delicious fruits and melons. 

The bustling American invasion soon changed this 
picturesque scene. San Francisco was built up at the 

rate of fifty houses 
in one month. A 
pony mail was es- 
tablished between 
San Francisco and 
San Diego, start- 
ing every two 
weeks. A vessel 
loaded with Mor- 
mons from New 
York and Vermont 
came into San 
Francisco, fol- 
lowed by another 
bearing a company 
of United States 
volunteers raised 
to settle i^erma- 
nently in Califor- 
nia. A wagon road 
Missouri, and trails 
A military gov- 




THE GREEDY BOY* 



was established overland from 

were made through New Mexico. 

ernment had been set up, as has been said, by Kearny, 



* This cartoon of the time represents Uncle Sam as a greedy boy 
taking not only Texas and California, but Mexico as well. Queen 
Victoria, who stands by, fears nothing will be left for the Prince of 
Wales, but Louis yffipo l oon reminds her that England is fond of 
Indian bonbons and France of Algerian tobacco. They are all en- 
gaged in grabbing territory. 



THE CONQUEST OF UPPER CALIFORNIA 335 

ill 1846, and California entered upon her evolution 
toward statehood, an event hastened beyond imagi- 
nation by the discovery of some bits of yellow metal 
at Sutter's mill, January 19, 1848. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 

When Upper California came into the possession of 
the United States by conquest, there were iDrobably 
not ten thousand civilized persons in it. Three years 
later it had a po]Dulation of ninety thousand, and was 
admitted as a state without passing through the pre- 
paratory stage of a territory. Tliis unprecedented 
state of affairs was due to a deadlock in Congress 
oyer the question of slavery in the territorial govern- 
ment to be i)rovided, and to the wonderful growth 
of population owing to the discovery of gold. The 
Spaniard had neglected ordinary occupations in search- 
ing for the precious metal ; the Americans stumbled 
on it by chance in i^reparing for the ordinary pursuit 
of manufacturing. 

In conducting the various enterprises connected with 
New Helvetia, Sutter felt the need of a sawmill and 
sent some men up the American river about forty 
miles to locate the mill at a proper site. In digging 
the tail-race to carry off the water, a lumberman 
named Marshall,^ in charge of building the mill, 
found a few small bits of gold. Others say that some 
Mormon workmen under Marshall first found the 
metal. 

^ James Wilson Marshall, a native of New Jersey, emigrated to 
California in 1844 and served in the "bear flag" war. After his 
discovery of gold, his land was seized and he was reduced to 
extreme poverty in his old age. Sutter experienced the same fate. 

336 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 337 

The news spread with astonishing rapidity. San 
Francisco w^as the first pLace of importance to hear of 
the discovery, and within four months had lost three- 
fourths of its population. One man bought a horse 
for fifteen dollars and after reaching the diggings 
hired it out for one hundred dollars per week. Men 
paid as much as five hundred dollars for a rowboat in 





THE .SLITTER MILL* 



which to row up to Sutter's Fort. The city council 
of San Francisco adjourned permanently, the 
churches were closed, and the two newspaj)ers sus- 
pended because their editors had joined the hegira. 

From Southern California and Mexico came Amer- 
icans and Mexicans, almost depopulating San Jose 



*From the painting by Nahl, owned by Julius Jacobs, San Fran- 
cisco. 



338 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

and Monterey. An alguazil (constable) brought along 
ten prisoners from his jail and set them working for 
him. The American cooks and soldiers deserted from 
the California forts until the officers were compelled 
to do their own cooking. The news spread to the 
Sandwich Islands and brought over thousands of 
Chinese. Twenty-seven vessels left Honolulu within 
four months carrying six hundred persons. The news 
went thence by vessel to Vancouver Island and so 
reached the Americans in Oregon, many of whom 
came down into California. 

In his message, upon the assembling of Congress 
in 1848, President Polk said that, unwilling to credit 
the reports coming from the gold fields, he had sent 
an officer who verified the announcement of the dis- 
covery. The supply was very large and the metal 
w^as found over an extensive district. The effects 
had produced a marvelous change of affairs in 
California. The following is extracted from the Pres- 
ident's Message : 

Labor commands a most exorbitant price, and other pursuits but 
that of searching for the precious metals are abandoned. Nearly 
the whole of the male population has gone to the gold districts. 
Ships arriving on the coast are deserted by their crews and their 
voyages suspended for want of sailors. Our commanding officer 
there entertains apprehensions that soldiers cannot be kept in the 
public service witiiout a large increase of pay. Desertions in his 
command have become frequent, and he recommends that those 
who shall withstand the strong temptation and remain faithful 
should be rewarded. 

The contagion of migrating to California spread 
with lightning rapidity and affected all classes. It 
furnished themes for popular songs, employment for 
fortune-tellers, texts for sermons, and proved a boon 



GOLD, TEIE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 339 



to tlie manufacturers of rubber boots and clothing, 
arms and ammunition. The streets of New York 
were filled with "Forty-niners," wearing broad felt 
hats of a reddish brown hue, loose rough coats reach- 
ing to the knee, and high boots. They bristled with 
weapons. Many of the volunteers just discharged 
from the army of the Mexican war joined the bands 
for California in search of new adventures. The 
New York bakeries kept their ovens hot day and 




THE RUBBER LnSTE TO CALIFORNIA 



night supplying sea bread to vessels sailing for 
Panama or about Cape Horn. Old goods, long since 
thought unsalable, were brought out and sold to the 
departing adventurers. Pistols and patent medicines 
were in especial demand. It was possible to secure 

*The inscription below this cartoon reads, "From the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, through in no time. The principle of this Railway is 
such that if the Passengers are nicely balanced both in mind and 
body all that is necessary to land at the 'Gold diggens' is to cut 
the line on the Atlantic side, then by one jerk, they reach in safety 
their place of destination. Reverse the above and they are back 
again." 



340 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



arms from the government bj making affidavit of 
intention to go to California. During the first two 
months of 1849, one hundred and thirty-seven vessels 
sailed from the Atlantic ports carrying eight thousand 
men, and seventy more were fitting out. 

The most dreaded feature of the journey for those 
who went by Panama was crossing the Isthmus. A 
traveler sent back an account of his experiences to a 

New York newspa- 
per : ' ' Mounted on 
our hardy mules," 
he says, "we made 
our way along the 
path through forests 
and over rocks in the 
most breakneck style 
I ever experienced. 
But we went through 
it good- humoredly , 
and I rather think 
the Isthmus has not 
lieard such yelling 
and shouting since 
Balboa came across. 
Fancy yourself riding and walking at once, your 
mule over his knees in mud, and your feet, especially 
if you are tall, dragging on the earth, unless 3^ou tie 
tliem to his neck. . . . We gave three cheers when 
the blue sheet of the Pacific came in sight." He 
found four hundred others on the Pacific coast w^aiting 
for a vessel to convey them to California and paying 
four dollars per day board in the meantime. 




CROSSIXU THE ISTHMUS (FROM AN OLD CUT 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 341 

If the conservative, older states were thus affected, 
one may imagine the excitement along the migratory 
frontier as the news gradually spread among the set- 
tlers. Little preparation was needed by these hardy 
frontiersmen for the journey of two thousand miles. 
They had choice of the Oregon or the Santa Fe trail. 

The northern or Oregon trail was most generally 
chosen, since it was the shorter. From St. Joseph or 
Independence, near the Missouri, it led along the 
Platte river to Fort Laramie, the western outpost. 
Along this way the line of ' ' prairie schooners ' ' 




(FROM AX OLD WOOD CUT I 



stretched for miles, ^ being drawn up in a corral at 
night as an enclosure for the grazing animals, and 
stretching away again soon after break of day. The 
ferries were inadequate to the demand, and it was 
necessary to register on arrival in order to secure 
one's turn. Sometimes two hundred w^agons were 
thus waiting, and a single ferry transferred over nine 
hundred wagons in one summer. A traveler counted 
four hundred and fifty-nine wagons in ten miles along 

^ The sides of the beds of these wagons had such a shear that they 
bore a fancied resemblance to a boat. The coupling was also un- 
usually long. The white canvas cover likewise suggested the sail 
of a vessel. 



342 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the Platte. The men were picturesque in their woolen 
shirts, canvas jackets, and high toj) boots. Each car- 
ried a gun and two revolvers. Many of the w^onien 
trudged along on foot, some carrying children. At 
intervals one saw a little mound w^ith a board at the 
head, upon which a cliild's name had been burned 
with a hot iron. The trail was strewn with utensils 
and household goods abandoned to lighten the 
load. 

The position of women in this movement was 
unique. Some ex^^eclitions were organized for the 
sole iDurpose of taking them to California. Enterpris- 
ing steamboat captains would frequently cry " Ladies 
on board" to attract travelers. It was estimated 
that women made up only two per cent of the popula- 
tion in the mining camps and but eight per cent of 
that of San Francisco. It Avas said that the chief 
Cjualification of an early governor was the presence of 
his wife and two daughters. Tickets to a wedding 
sold readily at five dollars each. Miners separated 
from home would frequently travel miles to see a 
child, and would weep at the sound of its voice. A 
child born in the diggings received presents of gold- 
dust that would have constituted a modest fortune in 
the states. 

With such numbers of i)eople, proper sanitary 
arrangements were impossible. The cholera epidemic 
of 1849 carried off over five thousand of these immi- 
grants gathered along the Missouri. Yet thousands 
more painted on their wagon tops "Ho for the 
diggings," purchased one of the numerous printed 
and pressed on up tlie easy slopes leading 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 343 

to the South Pass of the Rocky moiintaiiis.^ Here 
some amused themselves by carrying a pail of water 
from the Sweetwater, a branch of the Platte, to the 
Little Sandy, a branch of the Green, and so wedding 
the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. Thence to 
Fort Hall the way was easy along the Oregon trail, 
but at the fort the travelers turned south up the 
Snake river and Goose creek to the dreaded "Amer- 





AT NIGHT OX THE CALIFORXIA TRAIL (A CONTEMPORARY DRAWING) 

ican desert." Amidst great suffering from lack of 
water, the Humboldt was followed until it sank in 



^ The following is the first stanza of a popular song of the day . 

I soon shall be in 'Frisco, 
And then 1 11 look all "round, 

And when I see the gold lumps there 
I'll pick 'em off the ground. 

I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys, 
I'll drain the rivers dry, 

A pocket full of rocks bring home- 
So, brothers, dont you cry. 

Parkman's "Oregon Trail" is a classic on the experiences of the 
overland journey. 



344 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the sands about its alkali lake, and then the Truckee 
was reached to be followed up to its head. Thence 
the way divided to the many gold districts. vSome 
travelers passed down the Feather river, others the 
Yuba, and still others the American. 

The southern or Santa Fe trail led from Fort Smith 




THE TRAILS TO CALIFORNIA 



(now Arkansas) along the Canadian or Red river to 
the Pecos and thence to Sante Fe. If the gold-seeker 
followed Kearny's or Cooke's route to southern Cali- 
fornia he would still be far from his goal. Therefore 
many preferred to turn north across the Grand and 
Green rivers and to pass the Wasatch mountains to 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 345 

the old Oregon trail. A few went south of the 
Great Salt Lake and up througli the ''desert" to the 
Humboldt. 

Many caravans started upon the fearful journey 
inadequately equipped, and both government and 
private relief expeditions were necessary. "Outfits " 
varied from those carried by organized companies 
backed by inv^ested capital to individuals who trundled 
their equipment across the continent in a wheel- 
barrow. Any one could borrow money on his future 
prospects. Stories came back to inflame still more 
the eastern minds ; stories of ten men in ten days 
taking out one and one-half million dollars' worth of 
gold ; of white men employing Indians to gather up 
nuggets as nuts were gathered in the states ; of profits 
averaging one dollar per minute ; of a spade selling 
for one thousand dollars. Few letters were written 
from the diggings since the material and the time lost 
it was estimated would make a letter cost over one 
hundred dollars. Those which were written told of 
tlie payment of one dollar per garment for washing ; 
of men who carried a patent rubber hammock which 
they had bought to be used also as a life pre- 
server, pillow, mattress, repository for papers, and a 
raft over streams. They said that Sutter had let a 
store room in his fort for three thousand dollars a 
month ; that a doctor paid a teamster one hundred 
dollars for taking a gold washer into the diggings and 
charged him the same sum for writing a prescription 
when they reached there. They also described the 
excitement when a new field was discovered ; how 
men threw themselves upon the earth and extended 



340 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

their arms and legs to make as large a claim as pos- 
sible. So wild grew expectations fed by these stories 
that some companies bought dredges with which to 
scoop up the metal. Wheelbarrows which cost five 
dollars in New York were taken around by sea at a 
cost of $18.90. 

No such exodus had taken place within recorded 
history. Before the end of the year 1848 there were 
six thousand men in the gold fields and they had sent 
out six million dollars' worth of gold dust. By the 
end of 1849 over thirty-five thousand had arrived by 
sea and forty-two thousand by land. Of these fully 
three-fourths came from the United States. In San 
Francisco gold-dust was accepted as legal tender 
at the rate of sixteen dollars an ounce. That city 
o-rew in a few months from two thousand to sixteen 
thousand. In her harbor lay four hundred ships 
deserted by the sailors who had gone to the gold 
diggings. 

The English newspapers ridiculed the stampede 
from that country, but could not stoj) it. One of their 
parodies runs : 

Gold is got in pan and pot, 

Soup tureen and ladle, 
Basket, bird-cage and what-not 

Even in a cradle! 

But we hope this golden move 

Really is all true, sirs. 
Else will Yankee Doodle prove 

A Yankee Doodle doo, sirs. 

Every one who digs and delves, 

All whose arms are brawny, 
Buy a pick and help yourselves 

Off to CaHforny. 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 347 

It was but natural that all this influx would bring 
a certain lawless element, although the most vicious 
class was prevented from migrating because of lack of 
capital. The United States had subsidized the Pacific 
Mail Steamship Company to ply between New York 
and San Francisco by transfer across the Isthmus of 
Panama, yet communication was irregular and infre- 
quent. Many who had gone on the first impulse now 






TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM CALIFORNIA (FROM A CARTOON OF 18-49) 



sought means of return. Fabulous prices were off'ered 
for a return passage by those who had accumulated 
wealth. Cartoons exaggerated this condition of 
affairs, but it was sufficiently bad. In Sacramento 
the hospitals were crowded. Eggs sold at six dollars 
a dozen, milk at one dollar a quart and dried peaches 
at fifty-five cents a pound. Many who had come out 
singing "0 California, that's the land for me," now 
began to sing "Oh, carry me back to old Virginia." 



348 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Tlie immigrants for tlie larger part ^vere young 
men/ and youth and hope soon told in overcoming 
this temporary depression and in building up a pros- 
perous and thriving state from such varied materials. 
The Argonauts, or Forty-niners as they styled them- 
selves, are proud to show that seven of the first ten 
governors, and all but two of the United States sena- 
tors prior to 1897, were among the early gold seekers. 
The Spanish element was thus overcome in the 



f,^ 



M. 







SAN DIEfiO, OLDEST MISSION IN CALIFORNIA 

twinkling of an eye by this inflow of Americans, and 
the picturesque and often ruined missions form almost 
the only visible evidence that the procrastinating 
Castilian was once master of this enterprising coun- 

^ The constituency of the convention which framed the first con- 
stitution for California (1850) indicates the states from which the 
population was most largely drawn. From New York came eleven ; 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, two; New England, six; Ohio, three; 
Maryland, five; Virginia and Kentucky, three each; Missouri, 
Florida, and Tennessee, one each. Seven were born in California, 
and five were foreign born. There were fourteen lawyers, eleven 
farmers, eight mercliants, and fifteen scattering. Only four mem- 
bers were over fifty years of age. 



GOLD, THE NEW FACTOR IN AMERICAN EXPANSION 349 



try. Yet it was still a distant and isolated part of 
the United States. A railway was needed across the 
continent to bind the sections together. That truly 
was a chimerical idea and not thought likely to be 
realized within generations. 

But a railroad across the Isthmus was practical. 
Indeed capitalists interested in the transportation 
lines of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, had 
formed a company 
for that purpose and 
sent out engineers in 
January, 1849. The 
enterprise was begun 
in the swamps during 
the rainy season, and 
hindered by the dense 
vegetation and by the 
malaria arising from 
the low ground. The 
white men spent their 
days wading in the 
s.wamps and their 
nights tossino- in the 
hulk of an old vessel 
which had been anchored in the bay on the Gulf 
side for a dwelling. They were tortured by the mos- 
quitoes and sand flies and attacked by fever. 

Irish laborers were imported but died of swamp 
fever ; one'thousand Chinamen were brought out but 
scores committed suicide ; coolies from India were 
tried without avail ; and the shiftless natives of the 
adjacent Indies furnished the only available laborers. 




ox THE ISTHMUS ROUTK (FROM AN OLD C'l'T) 



350 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

In three years, twelve miles of the road were usable 
and in two years more the remaining thirty-six were 
comj)leted. It was too late to profit by the first rush 
for the gold fields yet in seven years the railroad had 
cleared five million dollars, wdiile the total cost of con- 
struction had not exceeded eiglit million. In the 
first twelve years of its business, before a transconti- 
nental railway was built, it carried across the isthmus 
seven hundred and fifty millions of dollars' worth of 
gold and three hundred thousand bags of mail, with- 
out a single loss. In the meantime the possibility of 
a transcontinental railway had been brouglit much 
nearer by the colonization of the prairies of Kansas 
and Nebraska. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 

As section after section of the land beyond the 
Missouri came under the control of the United States 
by Indian treaty, the line of western forts was pushed 
forward to protect the advancing civilization. In 
1832, a temporary cantonment of troops on the Mis- 
souri river w^as named Fort Leavenworth in honor of 
the colonel of the regiment, and a iDermanent post 
established. With the soldiers and often in advance 
of them went the missionary to the Indian. In 1834, 
at a Baptist missionary farm on Ottavra creek, a 
printing press was set up, probably the first in the 
present state of Kansas. Government maps were 
issued for the direction of immigrants. At the head 
of Grand Island in the Nebraska river. Fort Kearny 
was located, and far up on the Platte troops could be 
found at Fort Laramie. The Catholic Osage Mission 
School was opened. Town sites were planned and 
the land divided into imaginary farms. Restless 
pioneers came from Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and 
Missouri to take up the new lands as rapidly as 
treaties could be made with the Indians. Most of 
these settlers came up the Missouri river to the 
Kansas (at first spelled Kanzas) near which was Inde- 
pendence, the starting point for the Sante Fe trail. 
They settled along the Kansas and Osage rivers. 
Others went farther up the Missouri to the mouth 

351 



352 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

of the Platte to found Omaha city, Plattsmouth, and 
Nebraska city. 

No statesman could contemplate a frame of govern- 
ment for these people without seeing that the disturb- 
ing question of slavery or no slavery must arise. It 
was true that the region lay north of the Missouri 
compromise line and was therefore free ; but part of 
it lay due west of Missouri and many of the immi- 
grants had crossed over from that state with their 




PROGRKSS OF THE DIVIDINQ LIXE BETWEEX SLAVERY AND FREEDOM 



slaves and could not easily be dispossessed. Indeed 
no one who had studied the due westward movement 
of American expansion dared hope that slave Missouri 
would be allowed to project into free territory without 
causing trouble eventually. The compromise could 
not endure. 

Many sincere people felt that these slave owners 
should not be deprived of their property because of 
this compromise framed by Congress thirty years 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 353 

before and in which the present generation had pos- 
sessed no voice. It was felt to be contrary to the 
American principle of home rule. Lewis Cass, of 
Michigan, had suggested this thought in 1847 when 
tlie question of slavery in the territory gained in the 
Mexican war arose. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of 
Illinois has the credit of applying this principle of 
"home or squatter sovereignty" in a bill for the 
organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. 
All laws of the United States were to apply to these 
territories except the Missouri compromise, "which, 
being inconsistent with the principle of non-interven- 
tion by Congress with slavery in the states and terri- 
tories," was to be inoperative and void; "it being 
the true intent and meaning of this act not to legis- 
late slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude 
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way. ' ' 

The passage of this bill gave great satisfaction to 
the southern people, especially in the border states. 
So aggressive had the abolition element become that 
the slaveholders constantly feared some legislation 
which would drive slavery out of the border states, 
and so by gradual encroachment wipe out the whole. 
Gaining Kansas and Nebraska for slavery was a kind 
of flank movement on the enemy. It placed slavery 
in the aggressive instead of the defensive attitude it 
liad so long been compelled to take. 

On the other hand, a feeling of outraged justice and 
breach of faith took possession of almost the entire 
north. The pledge of thirty years had been broken. 



354 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

A northern man had betrayed them. His name was 
Stephen Arnold Doughas, but the press greeted him as 
Benedict Arnold Douglas. He was commanded to 
show the thirty i3ieces of silver which he had received 
for betraying his master — the people. The people of 
his native state — Vermont — wept for the disgrace 
brought upon them. He said he could have traveled 
from Washington to Chicago after Congress adjourned 
by the light of himself burned in efhgy. 

This indignation was felt especially in New Eng- 
land — the home of anti-slavery and Abolition. Five 
thousand people crowded Faneuil Hall on a stormy 
night to protest. A means must be found to frustrate 
what to them seemed an invasion of free territory. A 
precedent was easily found in the case of Illinois. 
When the steady migration from Kentucky and other 
southern states threatened to make Illinois a strong 
pro-slavery state, a number of projects were discussed 
to contribute a counter-acting free-soil element not 
ouly to the northern portion where the lines of move- 
ment would naturally bring it, l)ut to the central and 
southern portions as well. 

The Rev. George W. Gale, who had conducted fron- 
tier missionary work in Oneida county, New York, 
formed a stock company which purchased a tract of 
public land between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers 
and planned the toAvn of Galesburg. The prime pur- 
pose was the education of young men for the border 
mhiistry and to this end a college was proposed, to 
which was given the Presbyterian name of "Knox." 

In 1836, one party started in a canal-boat, the Argo, 
by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, thence to be towed to 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 355 

Cleveland. In a violent storm, the canal-boat was 
abandoned, but eventually saved although the house- 
hold goods which it carried were seriously damaged. 
From Cleveland to Portsmouth, Ohio, the boat was 
taken on the Ohio canal ; thence by the Ohio river and 
Mississippi to St. Louis, and by the Illinois to the 
point nearest the future home. Another party came 




i1 




AN OLD KNOX COLLEG115 BUILDING 



by heavy wagons directly across the country from 
New York to Illinois. 

Their temporary settlement was very appropriately 
named Log City. Gradually the town site of Gales- 
burg became occupied, and a church was erected, 
together with buildings for the college. On the road 
there had been some threats about these Abolitionist 
invaders, but they were not seriously molested. 



356 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Their young men engaged actively in the "under- 
ground railway," by which fugitive slaves were 
assisted toward Canada. The sentiment of their sur- 
roundings was decidedly against them and in 1854, 
their church withdrew from the Presbytery on the 
ground "that we are unwilling to remain in ecclesias- 
tical connection with slaveholders. ' ' 

Similar free settlements were made by the Quakers 
at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and elsewhere. Obviously 
similar colonization of free people in the threatened 
territories of Kansas and Nebraska was the readiest 
weapon. Within six weeks after Congress had re- 
pealed the Missouri Compromise the Massachusetts 
Emigrant Aid company was incorporated with a nom- 
inal capital of five million dollars ' ' for the purpose of 
assisting emigrants to settle in the west." Similar 
associations or "leagues" sprang up in Connecticut 
and New York. Senator Seward, although with 
little faith in the project of w^inning by superior 
numbers, said: "Come on, then, gentlemen of the 
slave states, since there is no escaping your challenge, 
I accept it in belialf of freedom. We will engage in 
competition for tlie virgin soil of Kansas and God 
give the victory to the side that is stronger in num- 
bers, as it is in right." 

It w^as to be a race for a rich pi'ize. The territories 
extended from the Missouri to the Rocky mountains, 
a breadth greater than from the New England coast 
to central Ohio. In l^isgitude they reached from near 
the southern boundary of Missouri to the Canadian 
boundary line — a space measured on the Atlantic 
coast from the lower part of Virginia to the east of 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 357 

the farther boundary of Maine. They embraced the 
present states of Kansas, Nebraska, and most of the 
Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, 

The southern interests were not slow to counteract 
the aid societies of the north. The Atchison Town 
Company was formed in Missouri, and the Platte 
County Association organized in tlie territory. It 
was said that semi-secret organizations of Blue 
Lodges, Sons of the South, Friends' Societies, etc. , also 
existed among them. They held meetings denounc- 
ing this attempt of northern capital to force migration 
and so thwart a natural decision under the law. 
There was no little bluster among these borderers and 
their strong language was accepted as a challenge by 
the New Englanders. 

In June, 1854, the first of the Emigrant Aid 
societies, numbering only thirty, left Boston and 
arrived without accident at a point on the Kansas 
river and purchased the site of Wakarusa. The com- 
ing of one these "Thayer & Co." outfits Mvas an 
overt act and " Yankee town" was a mark for deri- 
sion. A second party arrived in September, pole 
and thatch dwellings were erected, the first sermon 
preached, and the town named Lawrence, in honor of 
one of the patrons of the society. During the first 
year it received 673 immigrants from New England. 
By late autumn each party had a printing press whose 
product further inflamed the hostile feeling. The 

^ Eli Thayer, a schoolmaster of Worcester, Massachusetts, was in 
the Legislature of that state when the plan of squatter sovereignty 
was announced. He suggested and helped organize bodies of emi- 
grants who should hasten to Kansas and anticipate the coming of 
the southerners. 



358 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

governor appointed by the president arrived and took 
up his residence at Fort Leavenworth, where the 
sentiment was pro-slavery, but he was soon removed 
because he was in sympatliy with the other side. 

Day by day the gatliering of colonists for this 
strange mission continued unabated. Three hundred 
went out in one body from Boston. Edward Everett 
Hale wrote " Directions to Emigrants;" the Kansas 
League of Cincinnati published "A Journey through 
Kansas ; '' printing presses were forwarded to the ter- 
ritory. Whittier wrote "The Kansas Emigrant's 
Song," and Bryant contributed "The Prairies." 
Lucy Larcom won a prize offered by the Emigrant 
Aid Society, with her "Call to Kansas." Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson made a horseback journey with 
an emigrant Avagon train to Kansas and contributed 
his observations to the columns of Horace Greeley's 
Tribune where they were read by thousands. 

The largest section of it (the wagon train) is a party of some 
fifty Massachusetts and Maine men. . . . Some of them own 
tlieir own wagons and bring pecuniary means with them ; others 
have only brave hearts and strong bodies ; and they complain of 
nothing but the long delay, as they left July 24. Besides these, 
there are smaller parties from Vermont, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, 
who brought much valuable property. . . . Our train included 
about one hundred and forty men and some twenty women and 
children. There were twenty-eight wagons — all but eight being 
horse-teams. Our nightly tents made quite a little colony and 
presented a busy scene. While some watered and fed the stock, 
others brought wood for the fires; others prejmred the te-nts and 
wagons for sleeping; others reloaded pistols or rifles and the leaders 
arranged the nightly watch or planned the affairs of the morrow. 
Meanwhile, the cooks fried pork, made coffee, and baked bread, 
and a gaping crowd, wrapped in blankets, sat around the fire. 
Women brought their babes, and took the best places they could 
find, and one worthy saddler brought out his board and leather 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 359 

every night and made belts and holsters for the men. We slept 
soundly in spite of the cold and of the scarcity of wood, and each 
kept watch for an hour, striding in thick boots through the grass, 
heavy with frost. 

The one thing that discouraged our party, however, was to meet 
other parties, day after day, returning. Men on horseback and on 
foot, with wagons and without, came along in ominous numbers. 

. . ' Will you give up Kansas ? ' I asked. ' Never ! ' was tlie 
reply from bronzed and bearded lips, stern and terrible as the 
weapons that hung to the saddle bow. ' We are scattered, starved, 
hunted, half-naked, but we are not conquered yet.' 

The southerners, chiefly from Missouri, had no such 
agencies and could resort only to bullying steam- 
boat captains and ferry-men who carried the Yankees. 
Being first on the ground, they set up extensive 
claims, hoping to squeeze out the northern newcomers. 
They saw the first elections approaching when numbers 
would be the test. They thought these New Englanders 
had come into the territory temporarily to gain con- 
trol. "A set of demagogues and fanatics a thousand 
miles off" were using such means. " You reside in 
one day's journey of the territory," said General 
Atchison to them, " and when your peace, your quiet, 
and your property depend upon your action, you can, 
without an exertion, send five hundred of your young 
men who will vote in favor of your institutions. 
Should each county in the state of Missouri only do 
its duty, the question will be decided quietly and 
peacefully at the ballot box."^ 

The attempt to carry this advice into execution was 
resisted by the Free-State people who called the others 
"Border Ruffians," and claimed illegal elections. 
Governor followed governor in a vain attempt to 

^ Reported in the Platte Argus of Nov. 6, 1854. 



360 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

control these battles of the ballot. Rival capitals 
were set up and various governments claimed recog- 
nition. Troops were used in dispersing some of these 
legislative assemblies. Altogether there were at dif- 
ferent times seven capitol buildings. From the begin- 
ning there had been violence. The people of Lawrence 
prevented by vote any resident of another state taking 




DISPERSING A KANSAS CONSTIXrTKJNAL CUXVKNTION 



any part in their government. In turn they were 
driven out of Leavenworth. Mobbing grew common ; 
forts were constructed. Lecompton was laid out as a 
pro-slavery town and became the headquarters of 
that faction. Old John BroAvn, an Abolitionist agi- 
tator from New York, arrived at Lawrence with his 

*This and the next cut are from "Leslie's Weekly." 1857. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 361 

four sons to take part in the war. He believed in the 
sliedding of blood as the only remission for sin. His 
victims, often helpless, soon made him disclaimed by 
the people he was striving to aid.^ 

Every event in Kansas was reflected in the east. 
The killing of a Lawrence man by an Indian agent 
brought out " The Burial of Barber " from Whittier. 
Rabid Abolitionists advocated the arming of ever}^ 
man bound for Kansas. "Sharpe's rifles" was the 
watch-word. When over $250,000 was raised in the 
northern cities as a "relief " fund to compensate the 
settlers for the crops they had been unable to plant 
and harvest, the southerners claimed the money was 
to be expended for arms. The action of the "free- 
state " governor of Kansas in refusing $20,000 voted 
as relief by the state of Virginia strengthened this 
belief. The "relief" money from South Carolina 
and Alabama was spent in arming and sending for- 
ward troops to aid their brethren struggling to save 
their pro^^erty. The searching of vessels for arms and 
people bound up the Missouri was not uncommon. 
When this route was entirely closed to the Aid Society 
emigrants, a new one was opened through Mt. 
Pleasant, Iowa. The Lecompton force attacked 
Lawrence, destroyed the printing presses, and burned 
the hotel. They also burned Osawatomie where 
Brown had collected a force. The Free-State party 
retaliated on the town of Franklin. 

For five years this war raged in " bleeding Kansas." 
It was the final sectional struggle for political power 

' Many northern people even among the Abolitionists condemned 
Brown's action. See Whittier's "Brown of Ossawatomie. " 



362 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

resulting from the possession of territory in the 
western expansion. The north won, as she always 
did, through geographical and commercial advantages. 
Her urban population gave her great advantage 
in recruiting bodies of emigrants, her superior 
resources furnished the means to send them, and her 




KANrtAS— A NURTIIERN VIKW OF A I'KO-SLAVKKY COXVKNTl 



better facilities for transportation made the going 
easier and more attractive. Above all, her people, 
although acting from interested motives of gaining 
territory, were wrought up almost to a frenzy by the 
inspiration of a "cause," whilst tlie southern people 
were contending for their property and their rights. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 363 

Northern numbers told in the end, although the oppo- 
sition was strong enough in Congress to keep the 
state with an anti-slavery constitution out of tlie 
Union until the southern members withdrew in 
secession. 

Nebraska territory lying north of Kansas and re- 
moved from the slavery interests suffered no such 
struggle for possession as characterized that section. 
Nebraska as a territory was many times larger than 
it is as a state. Yet its lack of accessibility, as well 
as of Emigrant Aid societies, retarded its settlement 
in comparison with Kansas. It was also hindered by 
the sudden pox^ularity of its neighbor on the east. 

Iowa was made about 1854, although the opening 
of the ' ' New Purchase ' ' from the Sac and Fox 
Indians below Oskaloosa in 1843 had attracted a suffi- 
cient number of settlers to warrant the admission of 
the state three years later. But the California fever 
turned the public attention from agriculture, and 
Iowa did not receive her share of population until the 
reaction came. By 1854 naen had become sane again 
and were ready to listen to the stories of the richness 
of those prairies over which the Iowa Indians had 
roamed a few years before, and where chief " HaAvk- 
ej^e " had gained renown. Many painted out the 
words "Pikes Peak or bust" from their canvas 
wagon covers and substituted "Iowa." 

In one month, according to the editor of a Peoria, 
Illinois, newspaper, 1,473 emigrant Avagons passed 
through that city bound for loAva. Chicago papers 
described the trains of cars draAvn by two locomotives 
which came from the east carrying as many as twelve 



364 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

thousand migrants in one week en route to their 
new homes in "the hawkeye state." Two steamers 
brought to St. Louis at one time over six hundred 
future lowans. Three hundred houses were erected 
in Davenport in one season. Projected lines of rail- 
road traversed tlie state in all directions, and barbe- 
cues were given to help "boom" tliem. In 1856 the 
United States granted public lands for four railroads 
across the state from east to w^est. Cities were laid 
out which are now lost even from the memory of man. 
But soon the covered wagons which crossed the Mis- 
sissippi ferries and passed through the Iowa settle- 
ments bore on their covers the new w^ord "Nebraska." 
So the fickle raidtitude has swept forward, seeking 
better things, and always willing to give the latest 
favorite a hearing. 

Horace Greeley, making a tour of the west about 
this time, has given a graphic illustration of the tran- 
sition on the frontier from comfort to hardship : 

I believe I have now descended the ladder of artificial life 
nearly to its lowest round. . . . For the present the progress I 
have made during the last fortnight towards the primitive sim- 
plicity of human existence maj'- be rouglih' noted thus: 

May 12th, Chicago. — Chocolate and morning papers last seen 
on the breakfast table. 

23d, Leavenworth. — Room -bells and baths make their last 
appearance. 

24th, Topeka. — Beefsteak and washbowls (othe-r than tin) last 
visible. Barber ditto. 

26th, Manhattan. — Potatoes and eggs last recognized among 
the blessings that " brighten as they take their flight." 

27th, Junction City. — Last visitation of a boot-black, with dis- 
solving views of a broad bedroom. Chairs bid us good-bye. 

28th, Pipe Creek. — Benches for seats at meals have disappeared, 
giving place to bags and boxes. We (two passengers of a scrib- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS AND NEBRASKA 365 

bling turn) write our letters in the Express wagon that has borne 
us by day, and must supply us lodgings for the night. — Wilder's 
Annals of Kansas, p. 203. 

The race for Kansas and Nebraska had populated 
the plains with a rapidity second only to that of Cali- 
fornia. Improvements advanced with civilization. 
The magnetic telegraph line reached Leavenworth in 
1858, coming by Jefferson and Kansas City. Two 
years later the first railroad in Kansas was built 
from Elwood to Marysville, and the old locomotive 
* 'Albany," which had done pioneer service succes- 
sively on new roads from the Atlantic to the Missouri, 
drew a great concourse of people to a proper celebra- 
tion. Soon the project of a railway from tlie Mis- 
souri to the Pacific, long agitated, began to assume 
form. 



CHAPTER XXX 

A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 

It was one of the most remarkable triumphs of the 
railway in America that it suggested even the possi- 
bility of spanning the continent. So early as 1834 
newspapers were proposing a railway from New York 
city to the mouth of the Columbia, with an estimated 
length of three thousand miles, a cost of thirty mil- 
lion dollars, and a journey to be made in twelve and 
one-half days. Thus "time and space would be 
annihilated ! ' ' 

In 1849 Asa Whitney, a New York merchant, 
returned from China impressed with the necessity of 
securing the trade of that country by a transconti- 
nental railway. He saw a means to l)uild it in tlie 
vast wealth of the public lands through which the 
road would pass. He therefore petitioned Congress 
for a strip of land thirty miles wide on each side of 
the proposed railway from Lake Michigan to the 
Pacific. This space represented a day's wagon 
journey, and was therefore the territory which the 
road would directly benefit. The income from the 
sales of the land would build the road. He braved 
all ridicule, held public meetings in various cities, 
secured favorable resolutions from the legislatures of 
several states, but made little headway in Congress. 

It was a period of great national prosperity. The 
public debt was being reduced rapidly, the accession of 

366 



A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 367 

California and the discovery of gold furnished new 
arguments for Whitney's scheme, but sectional inter- 
ests prevented a consummation. Five routes had been 
surveyed under the direction of the War Department. 
The northernmost lay between the forty-seventh and 
forty-ninth parallels of north latitude, from St. Paul 
to Vancouver ; the next along the forty-first parallel 
from Council Bluffs by the Black Hills, Fort Badger, 
and the Great Salt Lake to San Francisco ; the third 
along the thirty-eighth parallel from the mouth of the 
Kansas river to the Sevier river in the Great Basin, 
where the route was abandoned ; the fourth followed 
the thirty-fifth parallel, but lay in a desert country 
for the larger part and was not considered possible ; 
the southernmost lay near the thirt3^-second parallel 
along the Red river, the Rio Grande, and the Gila to 
soutliern California, and thence up to San Francisco. 

Each route found its advocates in the people living 
near its eastern terminus. When the northern route 
seemed about to be chosen. Senator Benton of Mis- 
souri w^orked against it and fathei'ed a route which 
should bei^in in his state. Senator Houston of Texas 
tried to have substituted a route from Galveston along 
the Red river to southern California. A great con- 
vention met in Chicago to assist the northern route, 
but a counter-convention was called in St. Louis and 
another in Memphis. 

Not sectional prejudices alone worked against the 
project during the decade from 1850 to 1860. Many 
favored a canal instead of a railroad, whether it were 
dug across the Panama, Nicaragua, or Tehuantepec 
isthmus. Others opposed any great expenditure of 



368 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

money in behalf of a California railway because of 
the supposed barrenness of the country to be crossed 
in reaching it. A prominent writer said : ^ 

We may as well admit that Kansas and Nebraska, with the 
exception of a small strip of land upon the eastern borders, are per- 
fect deserts, with a soil whose constituents are of such a nature as 
forever to unfit them for the purposes of agriculture. . . . We 
may also admit that Washington territory and Oregon and Utah 
and New Mexico are, with the exception of a few limited areas, 
composed of mountain chains and unfruitful plains. 

Whitney spent a fortune in the agitation of the sub- 
ject, but to no immediate avail. *^ Nothing was done 
until the withdrawal of the representatives of one 
section of the United States in 1861 left the other free 
to act on this as on other questions. 

During the progress of the Civil War there were 
frequent rumors that the people of the isolated Pacific 
slope, who had for ten years in vain demanded overland 
communication, intended erecting an independent 
republic. This rumor, together with the invasion of 
New Mexico by a Confederate force, caused the con- 
tinuing Congress in 1862 to give six per cent gold 
bonds amounting to $55,092,074 as a subsidy to two 
railroad companies known as the Union Pacific 
and the Central Pacific. 

The Central Pacific organization was due to the 
business imagination of a San Francisco hardware 
merchant, Collis P. Huntington, who was one day 
watching a huge freight ^vagon drawn by twenty 
mules departing for the Comstock silver mines in 

^In the Noj'fh American Revietv, vol. CLXX., page 235. 
•^ It was .said that Whitney supported himself in his old age in the 
city of Washington b\^ selling milk. 



A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 369 

Nevada. Conceiving the idea of a railway to the 
mines, ho associated with himself Leland Stanford, 
a wholesale grocer, Charles Crocker, a merchant, 
and his own partner, Mark Hopkins. This "big 
four" began the construction of a road over the 
Sierra Nevada mountains by the Dutch Flat route, but 
such a chimerical project was ridiculed as the " Dutch 
Flat swindle." 

The Union Pacific was organized largely in New 
York for building a road westwardly from Omaha. 
In addition to lending money to these two companies, 
the government allowed them to borrow as much 
more, to issue stock for twelve hundred million 
dollars, and in addition presented to them an average 
of 12,800 acres of public land for every mile of road 
constructed. 

The Union Pacific company began to build west- 
wardly from the Missouri river, to which point the 
Hannibal and St. Joseph road had been extended in 
1859. The Central Pacific began to build eastwardly 
from Sacramento, w^here connection was already made 
with San Francisco. Under guard of United States 
troops the lines advanced, occasionally harassed by 
Indians, and gathering a vicious crowd of gamblers 
and robbers at the temporary termini, where murder 
and lynching were only too frequent. 

By special action of Congress the fixed meeting 
place for the two lines was abolished and a race 
began for a stake averaging $32,000 per mile. More 
than ten thousand laborers w^ere employed, four 
thousand being imported from China, and the con- 
struction of the rapidly approaching lines went on, 



370 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

sometimes at the rate of eight miles a day/ The Cen- 
tral Pacific had the more difficult portion to build, 
and received the larger bonus, amounting to $48,000 
per mile through the Sierra Nevadas. Fourteen tunnels 
were planned, but without awaiting their completio-n, 




JOIXIX(i THE TWO PACIFIC KAILKliAD.S 



building material and locomotives were dragged over 
the mountains by mules, and new sections begun on 
the other side. At last, after some difficulty about 
the lines overlapping, a junction was formed near the 



^ The chorus of a popular song among the men working upon the 
railroad ran as follows: 

Then drill, my paddies, drill, 
Drill, my heroes, drill. 
Drill airdav, no sugar in the tay, 
Workin' on the U. F. railway. 



A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 371 

Mormon city of Ogden, the only town originally on 
the road. State and national dignitaries witnessed 
the driving of the last spike at Promontory Point, the 
blows being recorded by telegraph in many cities and 
struck upon the city hall bell in San Francisco.^ 
Celebrations followed in that city and in Omaha, 
Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. The total 
length of the road from Omaha to San Francisco was 
1,917 miles and it had been built in seven years, just 
one-half the time estimated and allowed. Although 
this was but the first of the many transcontinental 
railroads, it meant that geographic union was now^ to 
be supplemented by a union of business and of com- 
mon interests. The wares of the magnetic telegraph 
running along the railroad would mean the bringing 
of distant parts together. Hereafter there -was to be 
no sectional east and west. 

The engagement of the national government with 
private corporations to construct the road marked the 
end of new "internal improvements" built directly by 
the government, and the beginning of private capital 
sufficiently accumulated to engage in vast enterprises, 
if aided by the government. Many people had grown 
disgusted with the old method because it bred a spirit 
of jobbery and "log-rolling" wdiich saw in every 
public undertaking the chance for personal gain. 
They hailed w4th delight the advent of private com- 
panies organized for public enterprises, but were soon 
forced to realize that public plunder is a danger from 
which the republic is never free. The rich prize held 

^ See Bret Harte's "What the Engines Said," written on the com- 
pletion of the transcontinental railway. 



372 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

out by the government in its emergency brought a 
swarm of vultures. Patriots for revenue only possess 
a keen sense of smell. 

The Credit Mobilier/ first organized by some of the 
officers of the Union Pacific, was given contract 
after contract for buildincr sections of the road. It 
was simply part of the company letting contracts to 
itself under another name and at the price set by the 
latter. On an expenditure of less than ten million 
dollars this gigantic fraud realized probably twenty- 
five million dollars from the public. Many members 
of Congress were besmirched even beyond the redeem- 
ing power of the whitewash which was liberally 
applied. Smaller steals like Wendell's were over- 
shadowed by the Credit Mobilier. No doubt the 
abuses on the Central Pacific were as flagrant, 
although never exposed so clearly. The later 
" Avrecking" of the roads in the interest of rival cor- 
porations was a fitting climax to this experiment of 
government engaging even to a limited extent in 
private enterprises. 

Such experience, humiliating as it is, simply shows 
that national character is not born perfect even in a 
new people ; but that, notwithstanding the remark- 
able growth and exceptionable environment of the 
American people, they must encounter the evils with 
which men have been perplexed heretofore. A higher 
type of civic conscience must come by the slow process 
of evolution. Eternal vigilance is the price of public 
honesty. It is often said that the difficulties of a 
transcontinental railroad would have forever discour- 

^ Named from a speculating company organized in France in 1852. 



A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 373 

aged capitalists but for these opportunities of "spoils." 
Yet no benefit conferred can ever atone for the 
debauchment of the government/ 

The peopling of the west was aided not only by the 
railroad but by the contemporary Homestead Act. 
Under the first system of land sales, the United States 
by 1827 had disposed of only nineteen million acres 
of the two hundred and sixty-one million it had owned. 
At that rate five centuries would be required to get it 
all sold and in cultivation. Thirty million dollars 
had been received thus far. Speculation brought the 
sales up to twenty-four million dollars in 1836, but in 
1843 they had fallen to a little over half a million. In 
order to protect settlers who had gone into unsurveyed 
lands and made homes, the Preemption Act in 1841 
assured each adult resident of his one hundred and 
sixty acres, and allowed him from twelve to thirty- 
three months in v/hich to pay for it. 

Such protection had become necessary in the exten- 
sive grabbing of the j)ublic lands, which was inau- 
gurated most innocently in 1835. Congress first 
allowed some canal lands to be transferred to a rail- 
road, and then gave a strip thirty feet wide on either 
side 'of a proposed road through the public lands. 
The next year it " aided " another road by blocks of 
not more than five acres of land on the right of way, 
and in 1850 gave to the rejuvenated Illinois Central 
railroad alternate sections of land on either side of the 

^ The true merits of the many controversies involved in build- 
ing and operating these roads can be gained only by a study of the 
numerous Congressional reports and the various decisions of the 
courts. Due allowance must always be made for political bias in 
the conflicting opinions expressed. 



374 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

road for six sections in width. Between 1850 and 
1870 over one hundred and fifty million acres of land 
were granted to aid the building of railroads.^ 

So enormous grew these and kindred draughts on 
the public domain that one political party declared 
"the public lands belong to the people and should not 
be sold to individuals, nor granted to corporations, 
but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit 
of the people and should be granted in limited quan- 
tities, free of cost, to landless settlers." Such a 
"homestead law" had a precedent in the "Florida 
Donation Act" of 1842, which granted a Cjuarter sec- 
tion in that territory to each actual settler. Such 
acts had been passed for the territories of Oregon, 
Washington, and New Mexico. The project of offering 
similar advantages anywhere in the public lands was 
agitated from 1850 to 1860, but the conflicting views 
upon the power of the union prevented action until 
1862. Tlie act of that year made a uniform rate of 
$1.25 per acre, in quantities from sixty to one hundred 
and sixty acres, to adults who actually settle upon 
and improve the land. Upwards of a hundred 
million acres have been purchased and thousands of 
homes erected under this act. It prevents foreign 
landlordism, insures the continuance of rural democ- 
racy, and under the easy system of transfer of land 
adapts itself to the present needs of the agrarian. 

1 The Union and Central Pacific, as has been said, were ^iven 
twenty-five million acres; the Northern Pacific forty-seven miUions; 
the Southern Pacific the same; the Atlantic and Pacific forty-two 
millions, and so on. It should be said that parts of these grants are 
yet to be located which brings the amount of public land actually 
given to railroads and canals down to one hundred and six million 
acres. See Donaldson's "Public Domain. '" 



A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 



375 



The United States has failed to realize the hope 
entertained by Hamilton that the public lands would 
prove a source of revenue to the government. The 
opposite of a direct return has been the result/ This\ 
vast heritage has frequently tempted legislation for 
the sake of vested interests. It has made most 
unequal the contest between corporate powers and 
the people. It has 
enriched a few. 
But it has also 
evoked certain leg- 
islation for the 
people. It has 
given a home to 
many a poor man 
who could never 
have earned it in 
any other way. It 
has converted 
many a European 
tenant into an 

American landlord. It has contributed largely to the 
well-being of the masses so especially characteristic 
of this new world. It has produced a resident landed 
democracy inclined, it is true, to indulge in political 
vagaries and visions, but thoroughly honest and virile, 
and giving assurance of the perpetuity of popular^ 
government. -^ 










MONT^ME.VT TO THE 



THE UXTOX PACIFIC 



1 Before 1880 the United States had spent on the public lands 
$121,000,000 more than had been realized from their sales. Much 
of this was spent on Indian treaties. In 1900 there were 1,893,476, 100 
acres yet unsold in the United States proper, but much of it moun- 
tainous and waste land. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 

Plato put ill words tlie universal longing of man 
for a better state than he has known ; for a brother- 
hood of kindly cooperation to replace a competitive 
strife but little above the beasts which rend and 
devour each other. The teachings of Christ tend to 
the same end, and the Christian monks who lived in 
poverty and in communities tried to exemplify His 
theories. Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," and the 
numerous similar writings since, imagine such 
cooperation and harmony on an extended scale. The 
discovery of a new world created many hopes that 
these dreams might at last be realized on soil 
untainted by the greed and tyranny of past civiliza- 
tion. Columbus is pictured as a "dreamer," but 
Ponce de Leon, Oglethorpe, Pastorius, the Puritan, 
the Quaker, and countless others sailed in hopes of 
realizing a dream. Poets sang of a Utoj^ia in a land 
untrammeled by the conventionalities of old-world 
life. The wilds of the Susquehanna presented charms 
surpassing those of England's fairest lake region.^ 

Cooperation from necessity, such as marked the 
first Virginia colony, whose members were controlled 

^The poets, Coleridge and Southey, planned a " Pantisocracy" on 
the banks of tlie Susquehanna, but nothing came of it. Cowley also 
longed to retire with liis books to a cottage in America. Bishop 
Berkeley came to Rhode Island witli great hopes of establishing a 
missionary college in the Bermudas. 

376 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 377 

by the London company, and such features of com- 
munism as the huid-holding of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth, are but imperfect forms of an ideal communal 
life as realized later under the enthusiasm of religious 
zeal. The desire to separate from the world in order 
-^ to practice the tenets of some religious faith caused 
men to forsake comforts and to endure privations. 
It laid the foundation of many American Utopias. 
Germany, in the various opinions growing out of the 
Reformation, contributed most of these religious sects 
and communities.^ 

John Kelpius and forty other members of the 
German sect known as Pietists ' came to America in 
1694 and established a brotherhood on the banks of 
the Wissahickon near Philadelphia. They called 
themselves "The Society of the Woman of the 
Wilderness." They lived the ascetic life of hermits, 
and attracted much attention by their peculiar dress 
and habits. The community lasted about ten years. 
Peter Sluyter's temporary colony of Labadists,' near 
the head of Chesapeake Bay, was another of these 

1 These countless sects were multiplied within themselves. For 
instance, among the Mennonites in America one may find the true 
Mennonites, Bruederhoef, General Conference, Amish, Old Amish, 
Apostolic Reformed, Church of God in Christ, Old (Wisler), 
Bunders Conference, Defenceless, and Brethren m Christ. 

2 Phil ipp Jakob Spener, '^The Father of Pietism," describes the 
doctrine as the more practical forms of piety, such as charity, 
toleration, better preaching, and more activity on the part of the 
laity. The movement was intended to quicken Lutheranism, but 
failed of much influence because of its extravagant forms. It has 
held very sliglitly in America. , ., -^ ^ ^t v 

3 Jean de Labadie, a French Jesuit, forsook the Roman Catholic 
for the Reformed Church in 1650, and formed a sect of Christian 
communists like the primitive church. He believed in the direct 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, the observance of every day as a sab- 
bath and the unregeneracy of children born outside of the faith. 
The sect lived about a century, but had few followers m America. 



378 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

German sectarian associations transplanted to Amer- 
ican soil. 

Among the German Diinkers who came to America 
was Johann Conrad Beissel (Beizel). He adopted the 
seventh day as the true Sabbath, and in 1728 founded 
a community of believers. A few years later he estab- 
lished at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, a monastic order 
including both sexes, the members pledging tliem- 
selves to celibacy, a common dress, and lives of 
poverty. The order was marked by many whimsic- 
alities and passed away soon after the death of Beis- 
sel in 1768. He has always had a few believers in 
his doctrine, but they have not attempted another 
community. 

The hopes with whicli the new world was invested 
have made possible a number of small religious com- 
munities, such as the one inaugurated by Jemima 
Wilkinson at Jerusalem, in south central New York, 
in 1789. She was a Rhode Island Quakeress who, on 
recovering from a trance caused by illness, claimed to 
have received the divine power of working miracles. 
She had a small number of followers whom she duped 
into celibacy and poverty whilst slie was supported 
by them in idle luxury. She wore elegant robes in 
preaching to them. After her death the commiuiity 
disbanded. Another class of temporary community 
life may be illustrated by the refugees from the 
French Revolution, who established the town of 
Asylum on the north branch of the Susquehanna, in 
Pennsylvania, in 1793. Here were gathered former 
deputies of the French Asseml)ly, officers of the royal 
guard, and first families of France, together with 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 379 

former wealthy residents of Santo Domingo who had 
escaped the ruins of that colony. They were engaged 
in any kind of labor which would earn bread. 
The company backing the enterprise eventually failed 
and the French scattered, claiming that they had 
been deceived. At present, Asylum is a Pennsylvania 
village of six hundred people with scarce a trace of 
its history in evidence. 

The oldest purely communistic societies in the 
United States, as well as the most successful, are 
those of the Shakers. Ann Lee, a "shaking Quaker" 
of Manchester, England, evolved a theory that Adam 
as originally created included both sexes ; but, being 
dissatisfied, was recreated and supplied with a com- 
panion, from which comes "Adam's fall." A life of 
celibacy is therefore an attempt to return to the 
original state of creation and must be pleasing to 
God. With eight followers, Ann Lee came to 
America in 1774 and settled in the woods near 
Albany, New York. Being deserted by her husband, 
she became a spiritual leader, and six years later 
removed to New Lebanon, near the borders of Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut, wliere a society was 
gradually gathered, which at times numbered several 
hundred persons. Branch societies were founded in 
New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, 
and Connecticut. In the great religious revival in 
the middle west in 1801, societies were organized in 
Ohio and Kentucky. The life in the various branches 
was similar, embracing celibacy, separation of the 
sexes, constant toil in fields and factories, a common 
treasury and eating rooms, frequent religious meet- 



380 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

ings, and guidance by the spirits. In their worship 
they perform a kind of religious *' dance." They 
call their organization the "Millennial Church," 
and claim that Christ made His first appearance as 




KELIUIOIIS JJANCi; Ul' TlIK S1IAKK1;S 



Jesus and His second as " Mother Ann." When the 
world is purified He will appear in His true dual 
form as God.^ 



* From an engraving owned by the Graduate Club, New Haven, 
Conn. 

' Their full title is "The Millennial Church, or Limited Society 
of Believers." The term "Shaker" arose from their "unusual 
and violent manifestations of religious fervor." In 1890, they had 
fifteen communities existing in Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, 
New Hampshire, Maine, Kentucky, and Connecticut. The parent 
community at New LeV)anon, N. Y., of 450 members, was by far the 
largest. They claim a total membership of 1,728. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 



381 



The desire of the Moravians to engage in mission 
work among tlie Indians led them to form a colony 
first in Georgia and afterwards, in 1741, "at the forks 
of the Delaware,/' in Pennsylvania. Count Zinzen- 




VIKW OF IJETHLKHKM COMMUNITY BUILD 



dorf, their leader, noting that the building in which 
they held their first Christmas service was but little 



"^ The accompanying cut of the community buildings at Bethle- 
hem was made and printed in London in 1761 from a sketch by Gov. 
Pownall, of Massachusetts. The largest of the buildings is the 
Brethren's House, now occupied by the female seminary. During 
the Revolutionary War it was used as a hospital by the Conti- 
nental forces. The next largest building, toward the right, 
is the Widows' House, and between stands the old company office. 
The latter was the first building erected, dating from 1748. 
On the extreme right stands the Old Sisters' House and next to 
it is the building formerly used as a seminary. On the extreme 
left is the residence of one of the ministers. 



382 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

removed from the hut in wliich their cattle were 
housed, named the j)lace Bethlehem. Branches were 
formed at Nazareth and Lititz in the same state. 
The colonists retained the individual family life, pro- 
viding only a men's house, a women's house, and a 
widows' house for those having no family relations. 
The community also provided churches, houses, 
shops, and mills. The simple German costume was 
generally worn but not required. Marriages were 
arranged by lot. Education shared with missions in 
their chief activity, and was not confined to the 
children of members of the community. After twenty 
years, the cooiDerative economical system was aban- 
doned. No traveler of early days failed to visit and 
to praise the peaceful life in the Moravian settlement 
at Bethlehem.^ 

For twenty years prior to 1803, George Rapp 
preached in Wiirttemberg and was persecuted by the 
state church as a "separatist." In the year above 
named, he and some of his advisers came to tolerant 
America and selected a site for a colony north of 
Pittsburg, in the state of Pennsylvania. From the 
thrifty peasant class of Germany, seven hundred and 
fifty converts were brought out and founded the com- 
munal town of Harmony. Hence they are often 
called "Harmonists." 



^ When the doctrines of John Huss reached Bohemia and Moravia, 
they gave rise to the "Bohemian Brethren," commonl}- called 
Moravians. They pledged themselves to take the Bible as their 
only guide in life. Being persecuted, they found refuge on the 
estate of Count Zinzendorf, in Saxony, from which missions were 
sent to America. At the last census they had ninetj'-four organiza- 
tions embracing 11,781 members, mostlV in Pennsylvania, North 
Carolina, and Wisconsin. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 



383 



Husbands and wives were not divorced, but volun- 
tarily assumed tlie new relations of brother and 
sister. The unmarried men and women were housed 
separately. The men abandoned the use of tobacco. 
Mothers gave up their children to the general com- 
munity. Such departures from the accustomed 
methods of life could not be continued when sur- 
rounded by people living in the usual manner. In 
1815, therefore, the Rappites decided to change their 
location and pur- 
chased thirty thou- 
sand acres of land 

in the uninhabited ^^^^^^^ i '^^'Iri 

region abutting on 
the Wabash a few 
miles above its 
mouth, and there 
founded their 
"New" Harmony, 
in what is now 




COMMUNITY HOUSES. KCOXOMY. PEXXSYLVANIA 



Indiana. But 

fever soon made its appearance, the land was low, and 
neighbors began to appear, who looked with suspicion 
on the new way of living. Finding an opportunity of 
selling New Harmony to Robert Owen, whose experi- 
ment will be described later, the Harmonists returned 
to Pennsylvania and founded "Economy" on the 
banks of the Ohio, a few miles below Pittsburg. 
Here these celibates throve and amassed great 
wealth ; but prohibiting marriage and fearing discord 
if they admitted new members, the society gradually 
became disintegrated by death, and the courts at last 



384 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



m 






declared a division of the property among those who 
could show claims. 

The community of Separatists at Zoar, Ohio, may 
be studied as an example of a religious community. 
In 1817 Joseph M. Bimeler (Baumler) a man possess- 
ing a good education 
and sound business 
qualifications, led 
some two hundred 
and twenty-five men, 
women, and children 
from Wurttemberg, 
Germany, to Phila- 
delphia. Bimeler had 
purchased more than 
five thousand acres 
of land in eastern 
Ohio, and his people, 
after many h a r d - 
sliips and largely by 
the charity of the 
Friends, reached their 
new home. Their 
lack of means com- 
pelled them to aban- 
don the idea of 
purchasing individual portions of the land from 
Bimeler and to merge all their labor and their earn- 
ings in the communal " Society of Separatists of 
Zoar." The organization was both political and 
religious. Government was in the hands of three 
trustees elected by the members. The families lived 




A DWKLLINU 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 385 

generally in a village which they called Zoar, and 
went out to till the surrounding farm land. All 
ceremonies were banished, the head was to be 
uncovered to no mortal, everybody was to be 
addressed as "du" (thou), and no military service 
was to be performed. Sectarianism was abolished, 
and Bimeler was both preacher and agent for the 
society. Marriage was at first opposed, but Bimeler 
having espoused a young woman detailed as his 
house servant, the idea of celibacy was abandoned. 

Each person was allowed two suits of clothes yearly, 
and shoes upon order of the trustees. All clothing 
was made in the common tailor and seamstress shops, 
the material coming from the society's looms and 
mills. Cradles, baby carriages, and household furni- 
ture were made on the same patterns. To the 
common bakehouse nnd dairy some member of each 
family came to draw the daily portion. When cider 
was made, it was drawn in a cart from door to door 
to be distributed. Men and women alike worked in 
the fields when necessary. Sunday work was not 
prohibited, because God allowed the crops to mature 
on that day. At first, children at the age of three 
were taken from the parents and placed in the society's 
institution for children, but this plan was gradually 
abandoned. Attendance on the community school 
was compulsory, the boys going until sixteen and the 
girls until fifteen years of age. With the exception 
of the *' palace" of "king" Bimeler, the houses w^re 
built of logs or plastered scantling, and roofed with 
red tile. There was no time for reading, and the only 
amusement afforded the young people was to collect 



386 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

in the public garden on Sunday evenings and sing 
German songs. These songs were of a religious 
nature, some of them referring to the religious motive 
of the community/ 

The community prospered for many years. It 




owned over seven thousand acres of land, besides 
mills and shops of various kinds. The membership 
never exceeded five hundred, although the joint prop- 
erty was estimated at one and one-half million dollars. 
Members withdrawing forfeited their share, this rule 
being sustained in two cases by the state courts. No 
Americans ever joined the society. 

Bimeler died in 1835 and no successor was found. 
With the coming of a railroad to Zoar and the admis- 
sion of the children of non-members to the school, a 
larger outlook Avas unavoidable. The younger mem- 

' Following is a tianslation of the chorus of a Zoar song: 

Lead me. Father, out of liarm 
To the (luiet Zoar farm 
If it be Thy will. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 387 

bers became dissatisfied. The early religious zeal 
had departed. Modern dress crept in, and the pres- 
ence of visitors caused the value of money to become 
known. The desire for possessing one's own, inherent 
in human nature and the great barrier to communal 
projects, brought about a vote for the division of the 
property and the dissolution of the society. In 1898 
this was peacefully accomplished, each share approx- 
imating one thousand five hundred dollars. This 
sum represented the life earnings of the older mem- 
bers. Many of the younger members have already 
left the vicinity and the picturesque Zoar is a thing of 
the past.^ 

During the early part of the nineteenth century a 
number of people in Constance, SchafFhausen, Zurich, 
and adjacent parts of Germany and Switzerland, 
received "inspirations" during a kind of trance or 
other physical manifestation. The inspired words 
were carefully taken down and became a guide for 
future action. Under an inspiration, several of the 
leaders came to America in 1842 and purchased land 
near Buffalo, New York. One tliousand believers 
were brought over and uj^on this land founded the 
community of Eben-Ezer. 

Communism was not at first contemplated, but it 
became necessary in furnishing emj^loyment for 
artisans in the undeveloped country. In 1855 the 
members migrated to Iowa and developed fully the 



^The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, July, 1899, 
contains an illustrated monograph on the Zoar communitj" prepared 
by Hon. E. O. Randall, of Columbus, Ohio. The illustrations 
on pages 384 and 386 are taken from it. 



388 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

communal society of Amana. Several villages were 
established, the families living in separate houses but 
having meals in common. The sexes were kept apart 
at table and all intermingling discouraged, although 
marriage was not forbidden. The wedding ceremony 
consisted in reading the fifth chapter of Ephesians. 




COMMUNITY OF NEW ICARIA, IOWA 



Pictures and music were forbidden as idolatrous. 
The use of tobacco was allowed. Every man was 
allowed forty dollars a year for clothing, every woman 
thirty and every child ten. Farming and stock rais- 
ing were the chief employments. In later years this 
society has increased in numbers, and is now mod- 
erately prosperous.^ 

1 Amana is a Hebrew word signifying "faithful.'' Tliey style 
themselves "The True Inspiration Congregation." In 1890 they had 
1,600 members living in seven villages in Iowa county, Iowa. See 
the United States Census of 1890, vol. I., part 7, p. 325. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA (CONTINUED) 

Communism based on economic and altruistic 
rather than religious grounds has experienced two 
great revivals in the United States, in one of which 
it took the form of Owenism and in the other 
Fourierism. 

Robert Owen, a wealthy cotton manufacturer who 
had instituted model factories at New Lanark, Scot- 
land, came to America with high ideas of a coopera- 
tive plant in an untrammeled and untainted new 
world. He was received with profound interest and 
was given a respectful hearing when he read a series 
of lectures and exhibited his models in the hall of 
the House of Representatives before President Monroe, 
President-elect Adams, the justices of the Supreme 
Court, and many members of Congress. A western 
state seemed to him to present the most natural 
advantages for his experiment and he accepted the 
offer of the thirty thousand acres at New Harmony, 
Indiana, from the Harmonists, when they decided 
to go back to Pennsylvania. He had good financial 
backing and easily paid the required one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars. One hundred and sixty 
houses, built by the Harmonists, afforded immediate 
shelter for his followers. A flour mill, a stone quarry, 
orchards, and a vineyard promised work and food. 
He issued an address to the " industrious and well- 

389 



390 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

disposed" of every race and creed to come to him. 
Thrifty people were inclined to be satisfied where they 
were, but the restless and improvident by the hun- 
dred flocked to New Harmony allured by free land 
and the prospect of getting something for nothing. 
The desirable could not be winnowed from the idle 
and vicious. So long as the capital of Owen and his 
backers lasted, the community flourished. Seven dif- 
ferent "constitutions" were put forth in the search 




THK ASSKMBLY HALL, XKW HARMOXY COMMUNITY* 



for a workable basis and to secure some kind of har- 
monious action. Finally, in order to purge the com- 
munity, Owen was obliged to tear down some of the 
log cabins occupied by the hangers-on. His carefully- 
planned workshops and his model lodging house 
remained on paper. He found it was one thing to 
direct a manufacturing community in the old world, 
where classes were acknowledged, but quite another 
to manage a group of democrats on the American 



* By courtesy of Mr. Arthur Dransfiekl, of New Harmony. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 



391 



frontier, where each felt himself the equal of his 
neighbor and refused to be ordered by any head. 
His money was gone and he returned to England 
with a sad heart, but continued until his death his 
attempts to establish a community in America/ 

During the few years that New Harmony (or New 
Lanark in America) lived, it furnished inspiration for 
the founding of at least eleven other communities 




FKEE NEGRO COMMUNITY, NASHOBA, TENNESSEE* 

located in New York and the states immediately west. 
The most prominent were at Yellow Springs, Ohio ; 
Haverstraw, Franklin, and Coxsackic, New York ; 
Forestville and Macluria, Indiana ; and Kendal, near 
Canton, Ohio. At Nashoba, near Nashville, in Shelby 
county, Tennessee, an experiment was made by Fanny 
Wright to emancipate gradually the negroes and to 



1 A sketch of Owen's work at New Lanark and of the plans of 
Fourier, with a drawing of an ideal phalanstery, may be found in 
Kaufman's "Utopias from Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx.'' 

*From Mrs. Trollope's "Travels in America." 



392 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



teach them to be self-sustaining. ^ The average life of 
these experiments was about one year. There was 
no avowed creed and no form of religious worship. 
Dissensions arose constantly on such questions as the 
proper observance of Sunday, legitimate amusements, 
and the kind and quantity of food. But the impos- 
sibility of abolishing the inherited feeling of social 
classes with the abolition of property was the stand- 
ing grievance among 
•"' ' those who testified to 

the causes of failure. 

About the time that 
Owen was making his 
experiment at New 
Harmony, Morris 
Birkbeck and George 
Flower purchased six- 
teen thousand acres 
of land in Illinois near 
the Wabash river and 
founded the towns of 
New Albion and 
Wamsborough. Al- 
though much inter- 
ested in Owen's attempts and frequently visited 
by him, they did not contemplate any communistic 




*W 




ENGLISH HOUSE AT ALBION, ILLINOIS 



^On Nashoba (sometimes spelled Neshoba), see the Atlantic 
Monthly for July, 1874. Frances Wright was a native of Scotland, 
who was associated witli many reform movements of America, 
especially a working-man's party in New York state, about 1880, 
dubbed the "Fanny Wright party." Her extreme views prevented 
many followers. At one time she was the wife of D'Arusmont, a 
French philosopher, but is seldom given his name by writers. After 
the failure of Nashoba, she took twenty of the negroes to Hayti. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 393 

features, but simply a colony of Englishmen who 
would be secure in individual ownership as soon as 
each was able to pay for the land he purchased of the 
founders. The failure of the project was due largely 
to dissensions among the proprietors themselves. 

Another and more nearly communistic colony came 
from France to Texas twenty-five years afterwards to 
carry out the theories of Etienne Cabet, as exemplified 
in his romance, " Icare. " Sixty-nine of these Icarians 
went to the company lands near the Red river to pre- 
pare the way for the general exodus the following 
year. But in the meantime the Republic of 1848 was 
declared in France, much of the discontent disap- 
peared, and when Cabet started he was accompanied 
by eighteen followers instead of the anticipated 
thousands. At New Orleans they were met by the 
remnant of the Texan colony, emaciated by sickness, 
suffering from lack of sufficient funds, and recounting 
with horror the stories of their experiences. Texas 
was abandoned and the united colony went up the 
Mississippi to the recently deserted Mormon town of 
Nauvoo, Illinois. As so frequently happened, dissen- 
sions followed and the colony divided, part going to 
Missouri and the remainder to Adams county, Iowa. 
The Icarians prospered at the latter place, and an off- 
shoot founded Icaria-Speranza at Cloverdale, Cali- 
fornia, which soon died. The original plan of a 
community was gradually modified so as to allow each 
member private property to the amount of fifty dol- 
lars. By 1890, through divisions and dissensions they 
had been reduced in numbers to twenty-one, living 
in an unattractive place, and owning 950 acres of 



394 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

land. The end came in 1898 when the courts set- 
tled up affairs and the community disbanded/ 

A peculiar form of association was evolved by John 
Humphrey Noyes, who had studied theology at Yale, 
and had become convinced of the possibility of living 
a sinless life. He gathered a number of followers 



'^ft'^fi^r*'^^^ 




ONEIDA COMMUNITY HOUSE 



who abolished private proi3erty, cured sickness by 
simple faith, and attempted to regulate scientifically 
marriage and birth. They were called ''Perfec- 
tionists." Driven from Vermont by their neighbors 



1 Dr. Albert Sliaw, of the American Review of Reviews, has 
written a monograph entitled "Icaria." One of the Icarian songs 
had a chorus : 

TravaillcMirs de la grande cause, 

Soyons liers de notre destin; 

L'egotiste seul se repose— ( 

Travaillons pour le genre liumaxi. 



Oh, workers in the noble cause, 
I>et us extol our destiny; 
Tlie selfish only seek repose^ 
Strive ever for tlie human race. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA .395 

because of their "free love" tendencies, they found 
refuge in 1848 on Oneida creek, New York. Branches 
were formed at Wallingford, Connecticut, and else- 
where, but few prospered as did the parent com- 
munity. The members- depended on agriculture and 
the manufacture of baskets, traps, and silk twist. In 
1875 the society had two hundred and fifty-three 
members and property worth a half million dollars. 
Tlieir buildings were the best yet seen in an American 
community. The reluctance of parents to abandon 
their children to the community, as well as pres- 
sure from public sentiment, finally forced them to 
make marriage conformable to the general usage. 
In 1880 the communism of property was changed 
to a joint-stock company, which still exists.^ 

One of the most celebrated attempts at community 
life was made in Massachusetts, largely by Unitarians. 
Headed by Dr. Channing, a little group of scholars 
inaugurated a movement looking tOAvard the develop- 
ment of a higher spiritual and social life through 
individual introspection and self-culture. The Dial, 
under Margaret Fuller's direction, was the official 
mouthpiece, and in 1841 it announced that an attempt 
would be made to carry out these "transcendental'"^ 
ideas on a farm of two hundred acres, about nine 

' Noyes has written one of the most complete descriptions of com- 
munities in America, ''The History of American Communism." 
See also Nordhoff's "Communities in America" and Hind's "Amer- 
ican Communities." 

2 This word was derived from their belief that ' ' there is an order 
of truth that transcends the sphere of the external senses. Their 
leading idea is the supremacy of mind over matter. . . . They 
look forward to a more pure, more lovely, more divine state of 
society than was ever realized on earth." — Rev. George Ripley in 
The Dial. 



396 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

miles southwest of Boston. It was not so niiicli a 
community as a joint-stock company of laborers. It 
promised a five per cent annual dividend to stock- 
holders if all other claims were waived. The charter 
members of this Brook Farm Association for Educa- 
tion and Agriculture were George Ripley, Nathaniel 
Hawthorne, Minot Pratt, Charles A. Dana, William 
B. Allen, Sophia W. Ripley, Maria T. Pratt, Sarah 
F. Stearns, Marianna Ripley, and Charles 0. Whit- 
more.^ Payment was made for labor by the hour, the 
orders being exchanged for goods at the company 
warehouse. Yet the chief thought was to have 
** leisure to live in all the faculties of the soul." To 
this end no one was to be employed wholly in bodily 
labor, but at noontime the garb of the workman was 
exchanged for that of the philosopher, teacher, and 
poet, and the remainder of the day devoted to culture 
and amusement. In the harvesting season much 
pecuniary loss was sustained by this rigid restriction 
upon the number of working hours in a day. 

Four years the experiment continued, not, indeed, 
without some ludicrous happenings to these poet 



^ George Ripley was the ministei' of the Purchase Street Unitarian 
Church of Boston, and at Brook Farm became the teacher of intel- 
lectual and natural philosophy and mathematics. His wife, Sophia 
W. Ripley, was teacher of history and modern language. Minot 
Pratt was a printer and became one of the hardest workers on the 
farm. His wife, Maria T. Pratt, assumed control of the domestic 
life of the community. Charles A. Dana was a Harvard graduate of 
twenty-four, and taught Greek and German in the school. Haw- 
thorne remained on the farm but a few months. William B. Allen 
was superintendent of the farm and carried the milk nine miles to 
Boston to sell. JNIargaret Fuller was but a temporary resident and 
never a stockholder. Ralph Waldo Emerson and A. Bronson Alcott 
were visitors, but never residents. See Codman's "Brook Farm 
Memoirs" and Hawthorne's " Blythedale Romance." 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 397 

farmers.^ The school was crowded and additional 
buildings were erected to supplement the original 
farm-house called *'The Hive." A vast community 
building to cost ten thousand dollars was begun. Sud- 
denly popular prejudice showed itself. It was claimed 
that the chastity of family life was destroyed by com- 
munity living. Many children were withdrawn from 
the school and the chief source of revenue impaired. 
The burning of the new building was the death knell. 
As the inevitable end drew near, Horace Greeley, the 
founder and editor of the popular New York Tribune, 
offered a refuge, and four of the best knoAvn *' Brook 
Farmers" found literary employment under him.^ 
The community was reorganized under the influence 
of Albert Brisbane, and dedicated to Fourierism. 

Brisbane, who returned from Europe in 1841 filled 
with the communal ideas of Fourier,^ had secured a 
column in the New York Tribune in which to explain 
the new doctrine. Remembrance of the panic and 
distress of 1837 was still fresh ; the restlessness of the 
people had not wholly abated, and it was a fruitful 
season for exploiting a new method of life. Public 
meetings were held in the principal cities, phalanxes 
organized, lands purchased on which to found phalan- 



^ In a letter to Lydia Maria Cliilds, George William Curtis apolo- 
gizes for delay in writing by explaining that wiiilst sharpening his 
scythe one day he cut his thumb so deeply he had not since been 
able to hold a pen. 

2 George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, George William Curtis, and 
Margaret Fuller. 

^ Francois Marie Charles Fourier was a merchant of Lyons, France, 
who, about 1800, devised a system for social reform. He recognized 
in man certain fundamental passions and these were to be treated 
as are the natural sciences. He obtained his nomenclature of pha- 
lanxes, etc., from the organization of the Macedonian army. 



398 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

steries, and a movement for better things begun. 
Manufacturing was not considered ; agriculture was 
to be the chief dependence. Owen had planned for 
his community buildings a great hollow square some- 
thing like a city block, where true communism should 
be practiced ; Fourier contemplated a central building 
with wings, which was to be occupied by a joint-stock 
company. 

Thirty-four Fourier phalanxes were organized in 




LONG HOUSE OF CRRESCO PHALANX 



various states, with a total membership of some eight 
thousand. An average of one thousand acres of land 
was purchased for each phalanx. This amount was 
far in excess of the need or ability to buy. A pha- 
lanx usually lived until the first mortgage fell due. 
Twelve died during their first year, although one at 
Ripon, Wisconsin, called " Ceresco," is said to have 
survived for seven years. 

The experience of Sylvania phalanx, of Avhich 
Horace Greeley was treasurer, may be taken as typical, 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 399 

although Red Bank, New Jersey, lasted longer and is 
said to have possessed the stronger hope of Greeley. 
A prospecting committee, consisting of a doctor, an 
artist, and a cooper, was sent out from New York 
whilst the snow was yet on the ground, and selected 
two thousand acres of land in Pike county, in north- 
eastern Pennsylvania, a short distance from the canal. 
They engaged to pay nine tliousand dollars for the 
tract, which was but little cleared and very stony. 
Twenty-eight married men, twenty-seven married 
women, twenty-four single men, six single women 
and fifty-one children came out in the spring. 
Although the children averaged less than two to the 
individual family, they were felt to be burdensome. 
Maternal love found difficulty in yielding to the com- 
mon good. A farmhouse and an old mill constituted 
the home or phalanstery. The first four and one-half 
acres of new land were planted in buckwheat and pro- 
duced but eleven and one-half bushels. Seventeen 
acres of newly cleared land planted in wheat yielded 
only as much as the seed planted. After a trial of 
less than two years, the original owner "good 
naturedly" took back the land on which two thou- 
sand dollars had been paid and canceled further 
obligations. 

Many of the other phalanxes may be grouped about 
some city. From New York there came not only 
Sylvania but also Peace Union, McKean county. 
Social Reform, Goose Pond, Leroysville and One 
Mentian — all located in northeastern Pennsylvania. 
About Rochester, New York, were grouped Mixville, 
Ontario, Clarkson, North Bloomfielcl, and Jefferson 



400 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

county phalanxes. In Pittsburg were organized 
Trumbull, in Trumbull county, Ohio; Brook Farm, 
near Wheeling (now West Virginia) ; and Ohio at 
Pultney Bottom. Influences at Cincinnati gave birth 
to Clermont in Clermont county, ,Ohio ; Integral at 
Middle town, Ohio ; and Prairie Home, in Logan 
county, Ohio. Alphadelphia was located at Kala- 
mazoo, Michigan ; and Washtenaw at Ann Arljor in 
the same state. Indiana had a phalanx in La Grange 
county. Illinois had one in Bureau county and 
another in Sangamon county. The phalanx in Wis- 
consin has already been mentioned. 

Separatists must have ideas at variance with the 
mass of tlie people, and hence tliey are often at 
variance with each other. Possibly no such aggrega- 
tion of peculiar people was ever brought together as 
could have been found in one of these American com- 
munities. Some were vegetarians and taunted those 
at the meat table with having been to the graveyard 
and with eating a dead body. Some would not use 
pepper and salt because they were not foods ; others 
would eat no bread save that made of Dr. Graham's 
flour. Some lived entirely on bread and molasses. 
One community was described as " No God, no govern- 
ment, no marriage, no meat, no salt, no pepper," 
and its members not as Fourierites but as " Furyites." * 

^ There came to a communistic society in Indiana in midwinter a 
man wearing a straw Hat, wooden shoes, and cotton clothing. He 
would wear nothing which an animal had furnished and, of course, 
would eat no meat. He would not sleep on a feather bed or feather 
pillow. Being an Abolitionist, he refused to eat rice, cane sugar, or 
molasses, and would not have indigo used in washing his linen, lest 
he might encourage slave labor. For the same reason he would not 
use tobacco and, from temperance principles, abjured liquor. 



SEEKING UTOPIA IN AMERICA 401 

Since tlie decay of Fourierism, a number of spas- 
modic communities have been tried, such as Greeley, 
Colorado ; Esperanza in Kansas ; and New Odessa in 
Douglas county, Oregon. It is estimated that fully 
fifty of these experiments have been made in the last 
half of the century. The feeling of individuality which 
is breathed in with the air in America, as well as the 
unusual strength of home ties, will probably continue 
to act against such communities in the United States. 
But those who have sought a Utopia in individual 
happiness and the approval of conscience have not 
sought it in vain in the western world. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 

America, during the expansion of its population, 
would seem to offer a fertile field for reforms. A new 
people, bound by no old customs, possessing freedom 
of speech, a low per cent of illiteracy, unbounded 
resources, recruited from the discontented of all 
nations, so happy that they become sympathizers — 
small wonder that every reform has found a hearing 
and some followers. Some reforms, like divesting the 
church of an official secular sanction and turning its 
activities into lines of charity and social well-being, 
have been accomplished so quietly that they are seen 
only by contrasting the former with the present con- 
dition. Others, like the temperance reform, are 
frequently associated with "movements" which cause 
a temporary excitement. 

The first widespread religious "revival" in America, 
about 1740, was accompanied by violent physical 
rigors commonly called "the jerks." ^ The revival 
^vhich marked the end of the century was most mani- 
fest in the newer re«:ion bevond the Alleo:hanies. 
Churches had not yet been erected of sufficient size to 
accommodate the crowds, and preachers were com- 
pelled to resort to the open air. Since travel was so 
arduous the meetings were continued at the same 
place several days. The people came in covered 

^ See page 49. 

403 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 403 

wagons or brought tents in which they lived. In this 
way in Kentucky the meeting became a "camp" 
meeting.^ The revival of 1858 originated in New 
England, and spread not only through the United 
States but to England as well. It was marked by no 
special demonstrations, unless by the quickening of 
church agencies through the various reforms pending 
at that time, and a greater harmony among the 
various church denominations. The fourth revival 







^^^' 



Ur^^liMm 




CAMP MEETING AT SING SING, NEW YORK 

appeared about 1870, under the influence of the 
preaching of Moody and the singing of Sankey, first 
in England and then in America. Its prime aim 
was to repopularize th6 study of the Bible. 

' In his " History of the People of the United States," vol. II., p. 
579, McMaster gives an interesting description of the early camp 
meetings, the first of which he says was held at Gasper River 
church, Kentucky, in July, 1800. The illustration of the camp 
meeting at Sing Sing, New York, is from an old lithograph in the 
Library of Congress. 



404 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

In a few instances the enthusiasm of reform has 
led to such extremes as the " anti-fire" movement, in 
which people refused to use fire since it was reserved 
for the punishment of the wicked. A reform such as 
vegetarianism w^as based on the humane ground of 
not destroying brute life to sustain human life. 
Again, such changes as Dr. Graham advocated, the 
making of flour from the entire grain of the wheat, 
w^ere based on hygienic principles.^ 

No reform movement in America is comparable 
with the abolition of slavery, since it was connected 
with the most discordant element in the national life. 
The Society of Friends or Quakers had urged the 
abolition of slavery in colonial days, and soon after 
the Revolution the different northern states abolished 
slavery, some by immediate and others by gradual 
emanciiDation. But few seemed to think that the 
national government had a right to interfere with 
the custom in any state which favored it. Following 
the adoption of the Constitution there were forty years 
of quiet, broken only by an occasional petition of the 
Friends to Congress to abolish human slavery. Many 
persons agreed with Jefferson in thinking the system 
w^'ong from an economic standpoint, but saw no 



^ The use of a purely vegetable diet was advocated as early as the 
time of Pythagoras, a Grecian philosopher in the sixth century be- 
fore Christ. It is extensively followed by the Hindus and other 
peoples of the east. Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister of 
Connecticut in his work as a temperance lecturer, conceived the 
idea that the use of meat as a food produced habits of intemperance. 
He therefore advocated a vegetable diet and the making of wheat 
bread from unbolted flour, tlms preserving the bran as well as the 
white portion. Flour made according to this process is called 
Graham flour, and the bread Graham or " brown" bread. Graham's 
book on " Bread and Bread-Making " appeared about 1840. 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 



405 



method of disposing of the negroes if they should 
be freed. Tlie American Colonization Society was 
organized in 1816 to export them to Africa, and under 




various forms and during 
forty years sent over about 
ten thousand freedmen, 
many of whom returned 
disheartened to America.^ 

But the question was to assume a new and moie 
disturbing aspect. In 1821 in the little Quaker 
village of Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, a saddler named Ben- 
jamin Lundy issued the first number of The Genius of 
Universal Emancipation, and thereby inaugurated an 

1 The negro republic of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, whose 
independence was declared in 1847, owes its foundation to the Colo- 
nization Society. Abraham Lincoln was always strongly in favor 
of colonization as a solution of the great problem. 



406 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

agitation against slavery from an ethical standj^oint. 
Removing from place to place with his paper, he 
came eventually to Boston, where he met a practical 
printer and editor, William Lloyd Garrison. Garri- 
son had the reformer's instinct and had already con- 
nected himself with the temperance movement ; but 
the abolition work seemed more pressing, and he 
formed a partnership with Lundy to publish a paper 
in Baltimore. Lundy had been content to advocate 
emancipation as a gradual process, to secure the 
freedom of children born hereafter, to ameliorate the 
condition of the slave, and to j^rovide opportunity of 
self help for the freeman.^ 

But Garrison was an impetuous, militant reformer. 
He argued that if the emancipation of a child was 
right, then the emancipation of its parents was right ; 
that if freedom after twenty years' servitude was 
just, then immediate freedom was just. He also 
accused the clergy of fostering slavery because they 
did not openly attack it. He therefore, in 1831, 
started an independent paper, The Liberator, in 
Boston, having for its motto "Unconditional emanci- 
pation."^ His first editorial contained a challenge. 

^ In summing up his efforts for abolition, Lundy in 1830 said that 
he had spent several tliousands of his hard earned dollars ; had 
traveled on foot live thousand miles and in other ways twenty 
thousand miles; had visited nineteen states and held more than 
two hundred meetings; and had made two voyages to the West 
Indies in the interests of colonization. In 1889 he went to the little 
village of Lowell, Illinois, to revive his first abolition paper, but 
death prevented a consummation of the plan. Mr. R. Williams, 
of Streator, Illinois, is heading a movement to erect a suitable 
monument over Lundy 's grave in the Quaker cemetery at Clear 
Creek, Putnam county, Illinois. Lundy 's efforts in Texas were 
described on page 314. 

^ This motto was due to the fact that most of the northern states 
in abolishing slavery had provided for gradual emancipation; for 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 



407 



**I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not 
excuse — I will not retract a single inch — and I will 
be heard." 

Conducting his paper under great hardships, Gar- 
rison was able in three years to launch the American 
Anti-Slavery Society at Philadelphia. Branches were 
organized all through the north, and thousands of 





Tl 


^^^ -■ 1 


^^^§ 


l'^^^^^^^ 



AN ABOLITION MKETING 



members were secured. Petitions poured into the 
various legislative bodies. This agitation disturbed the 
business relations between the north and the south, 
and the Abolitionists were often roughly handled and 
their places of meeting mobbed and burned. Illus- 
trations were made showing black and white mingling 



the freedom of all children born hereafter ; and for prohibiting the 
introduction of more slaves. Whittier supported Garrison in his 
attitude toward the clergy. See his "Pastoral Letter," written 
when the clergymen of Boston prote.sted against holding abolition 
meetings in the churches. 



4:0» THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

together in Abolition meetings. Yet as is always the 
case, the movement throve on such opposition. 
About 1840 it reached its largest proportions ; but 
just as it seemed to promise some results, dissensions 
arose among the reformers themselves. To such 
radicals as Garrison, Wendell Phillips, the Tappans, 
and Samuel Mays, the national government seemed 
dominated l)y tlie slavery interests, and they assumed 
the position of " non-resistants," refusing to take any 
part in civic life. Another wing composed of men 
like the poet Whittier, Birney, Gerrit Smith, Alvan 
Stewart, and Holley, thought abolition could be 
accomplished only by the formation of a third polit- 
ical party. They declared that moral action without 
political action was an absurdity in a republic.^ 

The results proved the wisdom of the attitude of 
the conservative or anti-Garrison wing. Their Liberty 
party led, after numerous vicissitudes, to the Free 
Soil party, and this in turn to the Republican party. ^ 
The Garrison faction continued to revile the govern- 

^ When John Brown made his demonstration at Harper's Ferry, 
the Garrison wing approved. Wendell Phillips went to North Elba, 
New York, to speak at his grave. But Whittier in "Brown of 
Ossawatomie"" said: 

Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good! 
Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood! 
Not the raid of midnight terror, but tlie tliought wliich underlies; 
Not tlie borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice. 

2 The Abolitionist or Liberty party in 1840 nominated James G. 
Birney of New York, and Francis Lemoyne of Pennsylvania, for 
their ticket. Four years later they named Birney and Thomas 
Morris, of Ohio. In 1848 they united with the Free Soilers or Free 
Democrats in nominating ex-President Van Buren of New York, 
and Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts. This same combina- 
tion named John P. Hale of New Hampshire, and George W. 
Julian of Indiana, four years later. In 1856 they went in with the 
new Republican party, nominating John C. Fremont of California, 
and W^illiam L. Dayton of New Jersey. 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 



409 



ment, to refrain from taking any part in it, and to 
educate the people, until the end came in tlie Civil 
War. TJiG Xi^emtor suspended publication in 1866, at 
the age of thirty-five years. 

Mingled with the disturbing political division 
among the reformers was the annoying woman's 
rights question, the Garrison following favoring and 
the others 
opposing the 
participation 
of women in 
the Abolition 
meetings. The 
question was 
brought up by 
the G r i m k e 



sisters, 



the 




^ 



^ 



CARTOON ON WOMAN'S RIGHTS REFORM 



inspired Caro- 
1 i n i a n s , ' ' ^ 
although it 

assumed national proportions when women were 
excluded from the World's Abolition convention 
in London in 1840. These women resolved to 
hold a meeting after they returned to America to 
secure the right of being heard in public places, 
and also to gain reforms in the right of mar- 
ried women to property. A convention was held 



* Sarah Moore Grimke and her sister, Angelina (Mrs. Theodore D. 
Weld), were daughters of a prominent South Carolina jurist, and 
emancipated their slaves after his death. Coming to Philadelphia 
they threw themselves into the Abolition cause and insisted upon 
participating in the public meetings. The older sister was one of 
the first lecturers claiming the equal rights of woman. 



410 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



eight years later at Seneca Falls, New York, which 
adopted a declaration of independence. It was 
modeled after the document of 1776. The word 
"man" was substituted for "George III." in enum- 
erating the wrongs they suffered at his hands. It 
was claimed that he had monopolized all remunerative 
pursuits, had arrogated to himself college education, 
and debarred women from the law, medicine, and the 
pulpit. From 1830 to 1870 this agitation of the rights 

of women con- 
tinued in various 
forms, partici- 
pated in by 
Frances Wright, 
Elizabeth Den- 
ton, Betsy Combs, 
Lucy Stone, 
Lucretia Mott, 
Harriet Noyes, 
Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton, Susan 
B. Anthony, and 
Olympia Brown. Mingled with the main reform were 
such kindred subjects as the abolition of imprisonment 
for debt, hygienic and sensible dress, homestead laws, 
the carrying of the mails on Sunday, temperance, 
bankrupt laws, and the education of women. 

It is not difhcult to connect the rise of Mormonism 
with the other reforms of 1840. Credulous i^eople of 
that time believed that the age of miracles had not 
passed ; that revelations were yet vouchsafed to 
favored persons througli various media ; and that 




NAUVOO— RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH SMITH 



,^ 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 411 

prophets were raised up for tlie ruling of tlie people. 
The divining rod was firmly believed in ; the search 
for gold was almost incessant. Although Joseph 
Smith had found his metallic book of Mormon and his 
reading glasses in some deserted "gold diggings" 
near Manchester, New York/ thirty years before this 
time, he and his followers were so driven from place 
to place by persecution that it was not until the great 
year of reforms that the Mormon movement, then in 
progress at Nauvoo, Illinois, assumed sufficient pro- 
portions to attract general attention. Mormonism 
offered an oligarchical religious community, with 
tithe-paying instead of profit-sharing. No attempt 
was made to abolish individual property or the 
individual family. The "separatist" feature appealed 
very strongly, since it was coupled with religious 
direction through the revelations to the prophets. 

Nauvoo was laid out on a magnificent scale, cover- 
ing an area six miles square, on the bluffs fronting the 
Mississippi. The erection of a vast temple or house 
of worship was begun. The city became a refuge 
for the dissatisfied and those who were aroused under 
the influence of the various reform movements. The 
number of inhabitants soon reached ten thousand. 

1 According to the Book of Mormon, one people crossed to America 
at the dispersion after the building of the tower of Babel. For its 
wickedness this tribe was destroyed, but it buried certain "plates " 
containing its history. These were found by one of the lost 
tribes of Israel which also crossed from the old world. Dividing 
into two factions, one lapsed into barbarism and formed the Ameri- 
can Indians. It destroyed the other branch but not before its 
prophet, Mormon, had buried the plates where Joseph Smith found 
them. The printed book, as translated from the plates, is about 
one-third the size of the Bible, and is divided into sixteen " books,'' 
and these into chapters and verses. Some critics assert that the 
whole was written by the Rev. Solomon Spaulding. 



412 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Illinois was at this time undergoing a transitional 
state of border lawlessness, and depredations by 
organized bands of desperadoes were not uncommon.* 
Under pretense that the Mormons were counter- 
feiters, that they sheltered thieves, and that they 

r 




-NAXTVOO— SITE OF MORMON AXD ICARIAM C(»MMUNITIKS 



planned to arise and kill their neighbors, the people 
of the surrounding country attacked Nauvoo, mur- 
dered Joseph Smith, and pillaged and destroyed the 
city of Nauvoo.^ 

^ No doubt justice was tardy in these outlying communities, but 
that can not pardon these "regulators'' who assumed the guise of 
preservers of the peace and in their lawlessness exceeded those they 
would suppress. One Illinois band known as ' ' Flatheads, ' ' organ- 
ized to punish horse-stealing, used its power to avenge personal 
wrongs. 

2 Joseph Smith was more of a visionist than the vagrant that he is 
usually described. He had his first revelation during a stirring 
religious revival. Some of his most influential followers at Nauvoo 
were antagonized by his revelation authorizing him to take spiritual 
wives. From these troubles arose his arrest by the state authorities. 
He was in jail at Carthage, Illinois, when his brother and himself 
were killed by the mob. 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 413 

A small portion of the Mormons followed "King 
Strang" to Wisconsin, but the larger number, under 
Brigham Young, successor of Smith, bowed to their 
fate.* Preparations were made to follow "the track 
of Israel into the west." The unfinished temple was 
converted into a workshop from which six hundred 
wagons were turned out. Homes were traded for 
horses. In 1846 preparations were complete, the 
great temple had been finished in order that prophecy 
might be fulfilled, and about twelve hundred of the 
faithful migrated amidst great hardshiiD to a tem- 
porary camping ground on the Missouri, opposite 
Council Bluffs. One thousand were left behind, as 
they were too poor to go with the others. Upon these 
luckless Mormons their neighbors fell with redoubled 
fury, burned the temple, sacked their dwellings, and 
drove the inhabitants over into Iowa. 

In 1847 Brigham Young headed a party into the 
boundless west in search of a retreat far from his 
persecuting fellow men. Unguided by compass, they 
came at length to the shore of what was called the 
Great Salt Lake, and with shouts and hosannas 
established the stakes of the holy city of Zion. A 
new temple was to occupy a prominent site. Every- 
thing was marked by religious zeal. Even the names 
they bestowed upon the physical features of their 
environment bespoke a religious spirit. The lake 
became the Dead Sea and beyond it lay the desert. 
Into the sea flowed the river Jordan. Near the Sea 

^ Brigham Young, a Vermont carpenter, was converted and joined 
the church of the Latter Day Saints, at the age of thirty. He rose 
rapidly, and in three years was made one of the twelve apostles. 
On the death of Smith he was chosen head of the church. 



414 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



of Galilee rose the Mount of Olives. Reproducing 
here the oriental life of the Savior, they could hope 
for peace and quiet. At least a century must 
elapse ere persecuting civilization could reach this 
isolated spot. 

Before word could be sent back to the Missouri, the 
"first immigration," embracing 1,553 people and 
580 wagons, left the wretched huts which had consti- 
tuted their tempo- 
rary homes and set 
out with rejoicing, 
(lancing, and sing- 
ing for the "prom- 
ised land." They 
knew not where 
they were going, 
nor what new hard- 
ships were to be 
endured ; but no 
future condition 
could be worse than 
their past and they 
had sublime faith 
in their prophet. This was justified when they 
arrived in safety. The next year the "second 
immigration" brought 662 persons and 226 wagons. 
In time most of the wretched remnant left at Nauvoo 
also reached Utah, making in all about one-fourth 
the total number of people originally in that place. 
A shipload of Mormons from tlie eastern states came 
around by water to San Francisco and crossed the 
Sierras to the chosen place. 




BRKiHAM YOUNG'S FIRST KKSIDKNCK, 
SALT LAKE CITY 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 



415 



Covetous liuman nature had been evidenced many 
times in the new country when men preempted far 
more land than they were able to cultivate and so 
failed to prosper by attempting too much. Brigham 
Young realized this fact and, in partitioning the 
farm-lands, insisted upon no family taking more than 
twenty acres. Much of the soil in the Promised Land 




SALT LAKE CITY — MORMOX TEMPLK AND TABERXACLE 



was found to be alkaline and lacking sufficient 
moisture for cultivation. But water could be brought 
from neighboring streams and conveyed to any part 
by means of artificial channels. In this way the 
Mormons probably inaugurated the great system of 
western irrigation which has so marvelously changed 
that region and caused the words " The Great Amer- 
ican Desert" to be struck from the maps. Zion 



416 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

prospered/ but her people found no rest. The unex- 
pected discovery of gold in California and the build- 
ing of the Pacific railroad brought the persecuting 
Gentiles into the happy valley, and conflicts with the 
United States government soon followed. The dream 
of the " separatists " was at an end. 

It is now difficult to imagine where a spot may be 
found in the future to which non-conformists may 
retire. America offered many promises, but Amer- 
icans have proved as intolerant of radical movements 
as people of the old world. It is insufficient to say 
that the adoption of the polygamous relation in the 
family has caused all the persecution of the Mormons ; 
that it has made the people of the United States 
insensible to their previous cruel treatment and 
unmindful of the service they rendered in the Mex- 
ican war.^ The original cause of persecution lies 
back of that. That could not account for New York 
state laws which at one time forbade any Shaker com- 
munity from holding property exceeding five thousand 

1 In 1890 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had 424 
organizations and 144,352 communicants scattered through twenty- 
two states and territories, chiefly in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona. 
Since Young's death, John Taylor and then Wilford Woodruff have 
been first presidents. The latter in 1890, by a revelation, forbade 
further polygamous marriages. A reorganized branch of the church 
recognizes Joseph, the eldest son of Joseph Smith, as the true 
prophet. Its headquarters are at Lamoni, Iowa, and it has 431 
organizations and 21,773 members, principally in Iowa and Missouri. 
This branch has always rejected polygamy. 

2 While waiting at their temporary home on the Missouri, the 
Mormons were asked by President Polk to furnish a force to invade 
Upper California in the Mexican war then just begun. They sent 
520 men fitted out at their own expense, who formed Cooke's expe- 
dition in connection with Kearny's. They served through the cam- 
paign, were discharged in California, and joined their families at 
Salt Lake when the tidings reached them that the site of Zion had 
been found. 



AMERICAN REFORMS AND REFORMERS 



417 



dollars in value and at another time pronounced them 
*' civilly dead." The hostility is not due to any par- 
ticular body of " separatists,'' but to the un-American 
principle of * 'separation." The political equality of 
man, the common schools, business relations, the vil- 
lage church, the undivided railway cars, the mingling 
on the streets — all point to man associating with his 
fellow man. They breed hostility and suspicion 
toward any group separating itself from the others. 
Self-reform by sep- 
aration is also repug- 
nant to the larger 
outlook of the reform 
of the masses. In 
America the absence 
of class by birth 
produces a general 
cooperative feeling 
and a faith in 
humanity as such. 
Yet it can not be said 
that any reform 
movement, however 

small, has been without influence in promoting the 
general happiness of the people. Reformers have 
died in despair because their individual hobbies 
failed of adoption ; but a larger outlook might dis- 
cover that each has had his influence in promoting a 
general happiness in America probably surpassing 
that of any other people. 

Horace Greeley, in defending the course of his 
Tribune advocating every kind of ism, gave forth a 




GRAVE OF BRIGHAM YOUKG 



418 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

large measure of truth when he said : " Full of error 
and suffering as the world yet is, we can not afford to 
reject unexamined any idea which proposes to improve 
the Moral, Intellectual, or Social condition of man- 
kind. Better incur the trouble of testing and explod- 
ing a thousand fallacies than, by rejecting, stifle a 
single beneficent truth. . . . The plans hitherto 
suggested may all prove abortive ; the experiments 
hitherto set on foot may all come to naught (as many 
of them doubtless will) ; yet these mistakes shall 
serve to indicate the true means of improvement, and 
these experiments shall bring nearer the grand con- 
summation which they contemplate."^ 

1 From an editorial of May 27, 1845. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AMONG THE PEOPLE 

The expansion of the American peoj^le has been 
marked especially by individual oiDportunity, comfort- 
able surroundings, and resultant happiness. The 
unparalleled resources of the soil, the diversity of 
topography, and the favorable conditions of climate 
have conspired to this end. To these concrete advan- 
tages has been added a more abstract benefit in the 
form of a government retained within the grasp of . 
the people by the steady growth of democracy. 

The Constitution testifies by its system of presiden- 
tial electors as well as by the election of senators 
through the state legislatures to the unwillingness of 
the fathers to trust the judgment of the masses. The 
suffrage was so restricted by property and other 
qualifications in the several states, that it is 
estimated but one of every twenty-three people was ^ 
entitled to vote in the first presidential election. The 
ratio is now estimated at one voter to five people. > 
Also the electors were chosen by the state legislatures 
in all save three of the states. 

The style of living as assumed by the presidents of 
the United States has grown more democratic and 
has gradually sloughed off tlie forms inherited from 
the old world. We have come a long distance from 
the coach and four white horses of *'His Excellency," 
President Washington ; from the balls given by the 

419 



420 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Hon. Mrs. Langdon, the Mayoress, and Lady So-and- 
So ; from the addresses, the bows, and the ceremoni- 
als which consumed most of the opening week of each 
session of Congress. If at any time in the history of 
this evokition the government fell into the hands of 
a sure majority who went to an extreme, as did the 
early Federalists,' the people overthrew them and 
placed in power a representative of themselves as was 
Jefferson. If the government became monopolized 
by professional ofhce-holders, the people arose and 
placed in the president's chair one of their own num- 
ber as was Jackson. If statesmen juggled with a 
great issue like the slavery question, attempting to 
quiet it by compromises, the plain people at last 
cast aside all "available" candidates, and called 
nature's uncouth nobleman from the prairies to solve 
the question and yet preserve the Union. 

Democracy has not been able to prevent class legis- 
lation and favoritism, although it has made the 
individual better equipped for combating them. The 
American people did not create, but they inherited 
the conflict between the classes and the masses. 
Since evolution is such a slow process, it is quite 
unlikely that they will settle the struggle. The 
millennium is not so near at hand. But never in the 
history of this long contest has the individual had 
the consideration given him in this republic and 
nowhere have so many factors contributed to his hap- 
piness. 

The comfort and safety of life have been vastly 
increased by inventors for wdiom this new country 
offered unusual opportunities. It is estimated that 




FRANCIS'S 



INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AMONG THE PEOPLE 421 

the chances of life have been increased as much as 
forty per cent by the life car of Joseph Francis.^ 
V Thirty-six thousand patents on agricultural imple- 
ments attest the predominance of that industry in the 
United States. Prob- 
ably three-fifths of ' % 
the capital of the 
United States is di- 
rectly dependent on 
inventions. The 
amount has been 
greatly increased 
along certain lines within the past few years. Be- 
tween 1880 and 1890, the capital invested in electrical 
supplies grew from one million to eighteen million 
dollars ; in electric light and power from one million 
to thirty-three million ; in dentists' supplies from 
seven hundred thousand to two million dollars. The 
development of the mining industry in the western 
states has been developed through inventions. 

As indicated in the preceding pages, transportation 
has been a constant desideratum in the expansion. 
The question of communication between water-ways 
soon grew into that of transportation between cities. 
Then came the more difficult problem of communica- 
tion between the various parts of the cities them- 
selves. In 1831 a car drawn by horses was placed 

^Joseph Francis, proprietor of a New York boat-yard, in 1849 
offered to the United States government a metallic life- car, but 
being refused, he stationed it at his own expense on the New Jersey- 
coast. The next year it rescued two hundred emigrants from the 
wreck of the British vessel Ayrshire. In 1888 Congress voted him 
a medal, which is preserved with the life-car in the Smithsonian 
Institution at Washington. 



422 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 




GOLD MINING BY IMPROVKD MACHINEKY 



upon the streets of New York and was imitated in 
other cities. The crowded condition of Broadway 
suggested to some wag the construction of a railway 

oyer the heads of 
the people. The 
suggestion was 
burlesqued in the 
comic papers, but 
in time it came to 
be realized. 

The education 
of the peoi3le by 
the people, long 
the dream of rul- 
ers and philoso- 
phers, has been 
brought about on an extended scale in the republic. 
Yet this important duty has been left almost entirely 
to local agencies. The state decides what is to be 
done but leaves 

the enforcement b^oaow.v «^\.,ev^o o. .rs r^.v.u. - --^ 

of the laws to 
the school dis- 
tricts. The na- 
tional govern- 
ment contents 
itself with col- 
lecting educa- 
tional statistics, granting copyright to authors, 
sending various scientific expeditions, printing for 
circulation useful information, conducting economic 
experiments, and supporting a Library of Congress. 




INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AMONG THE PEOPLE 423 

The latter was founded primarily for government 
officials, but is open to the general public and prom- 
ises to become of unexpected service to students and 
writers.^ 

One need but reflect on the dissensions, persecu- 
tions, wars, and slaughters of the past to realize the 




LIBRARY OF CONGRKSS, RKADING ROOM 



peace which has followed a complete divorce of church 
and state in America. Nor are evidences wanting 



^ The Library of Congress, as it is called, has been housed recently 
in a magnificent building in the city of Washington, with every 
facility for the student and investigator. The library was estab- 
lished in 1800 under the care of the clerk of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, but nearly all the books collected were burned by the 
British in 1814. Another fire occurred in 1851. At the present time 
the library contains about one million books and pamphlets, 
including duplicates. There are also 26,500 manuscripts, 52,181 
maps, and 277,465 compositions of music. In 1899 over 100,000 
readers visited the reading room, and nearly 300,000 books were 
consulted. 



424 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

that a state may be sectless and not Godless. 
Neither is a free church, dependent upon the free will 
offerings and gratitude of the people, an object of 
charity and contempt. Instead of preparing a man 
for the future life, the state in America sees its duty 
in offering full opportunity to each man to prepare 
himself according to the dictates of his own con- 
science. 

The strength of the people has been recruited con- 
stantly by the influx of immigrants from the old 
world. If further contributions had been stopped at 
any given time, we should have lost the pleasant con- 
templation of offering an asylum for the oppressed 
and opportunity for those seeking self-help. Nor 
should we have received those strong virile elements 
which have given us a civic duty in education to per- 
form and at the same time have prevented our grow- 
ing sensual and effeminate. Like the valley of the 
Nile, America has received deposit after deposit of 
crude material which has readily been assimilated 
and has enriched the whole. 

In 1819 the collectors of customs of the United 
States were required to keep a record of the number 
of aliens arriving from foreign ports. Before that 
date only conjecture is possible, but the number of 
arrivals was only a little over thirty-three thousand 
annually, and the total less than that in a single year 
later. The fluctuations as shown in an accompanying 
diagram are not without cause. The decrease in 
immigration after 1840 was the result of the panic of 
1837. The increase from 1846 to 1854 was due to the 
loss of the potato crop in Ireland, and the discovery 



INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AMONG THE PEOPLE 425 

of gold in America. The decrease after 1854 was 
caused by the demand for troo^DS in the Crimean war 
and the Indian mutiny. This was followed by the 
American Civil war. The increase in the midst of 
the war was due to the Homestead act. The panic 
of 1872 shows a depressing result, but the reaction 
came in 1878. The year 1882 remains the banner 
year, with 788,992 arrivals. This sudden increase 
was due very largely to the advertising and low rates 



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FLUCTrATIOXS IX XUMBEK OF IMMIGRANTS 



of rival steamship lines. The panic of 1892 caused a 
decrease in the number of arrivals during the six 
years following but the return of confidence in 1898 
caused the number to rise rapidly again. In 1900 it 
will probably reach five hundred thousand. 

The United Kingdom, embracing all portions of 
the kingdom of Great Britain, has furnished almost 
one-third of the total number of immigrants . to the 
United States. But if the kingdom be divided, 
Germany leads in contributions, followed by Ireland, 



426 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



and then England and Wales combined. If only the 
last few years be considered, Italy leads ; followed 
by Russia, Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, 
Sweden, and England in order. 

The foreign-born element is very unevenly dis- 
tributed between the north and the south, as shown 
by an accompanying chart. The northern portion of 
the United States was in former times more attrac- 
tive, because there free labor was not obliged to 




OVtn 20 PER CENT 
OF fOREICN BIRTH 



OVER 75 PER CENT 
OFNATWc PABEMTACE 



DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN-BORN AND NATIVE-BORN POPULATION 



compete with slave labor. The south was also an 
agricultural region, affording small demand for day 
laborers and operatives. The universal westward line 
of movement caused the building of trunk lines of 
railways from the northern seaports leading wost- 
wardly through the north, and the immigrants have 
followed these. Besides, the prevailing urban life of 
the north is more nearly like the life in the old world 
than that of the rural south. The foreigner has been 
attracted by the noi'thern city, and lias in turn con- 
tributed to this growth. 



INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AMONG THE PEOPLE 427 

This growth of cities is a most interesting element 
in the expansion of the American people, illustrating 
the infxLience of inheritance. At the taking of the first 
census (1790) only thirty-three people out of a thou- 



^■. 

ji 

J L 

_( f' 

J r' 

,1 :' 



PROPORTIONATK INCKKASE OF POPULATKIN OF CITIES 



sand lived in cities of over ten thousand inhabitants. 
In 1890 two hundred and ninety-two people in every 
thousand were living in such cities. Undoubtedly in 
tlie next census the number will surpass three hundred 
and thirty-three, showing over one-third of the entire 



428 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

population living in cities/ In thus returning slowly 
to the method of life in the old world, the United 
States will still be far from the head of urban-dwell- 
ing countries. England and Wales have the largest 
percentage of their inhabitants living in cities ; Scot- 
land comes next, then Australia, Belgium, Saxony, 
Netherlands, Uruguay, Prussia, Turkey, Argentine 
Republic, the United States, and France.^ 

^ The steady increase in the number of people living in cities of 
ten thousand or more is shown in the following percentages and 
illustrated in the diagram on the preceding page. 

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 
3.35 3.97 4.93 4.98 6.72 8.52 12.49 16.13 20.93 22.57 29.20 

The lack of growth between 1810 and 1820 is due to the War of 
1812, which closed American commerce and turned the people to 
agriculture. The steady increase from 1840 to 1870 is due to rail- 
roads and canals, which built up cities at terminal and junction 
points. The panic of 1872, which closed factories and drove labor- 
ers to the western agricultural regions, caused a decrease. The 
remarkable growth after 1880 is due to the multiplication of manu- 
facturing plants located generally in cities. 

^ The tendency of foreigners to flock to cities is illustrated in the 
Pullman car works in Chicago. Of the 7,152 employees in 1900, 
sixty per cent are foreign-born. The average for the whole United 
States is less than fifteen per cent. The number of Scandinavians 
in the works is double that of any other people. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

THE BEGINNINGS OF A COLONIAL SYSTEM 

When the raih'oad and the electric telegraph line 
reached California, they suggested the beginning of 
the end. Trade was now in touch with the Pacific 
by the western route. The dream of Columbus was 
realized. But the broad ocean was yet to be crossed 
before the ultimate goal of this western expansion 
could be reached. A century and a half before, Vitus 
Bering, a Dane under Russian employ, discovered 
that the great Pacific ocean narrowed to the north 
until only a strait, to which his name was given, 
separated the two continents. The achievements of 
the telegraph suggested the possibility of laying a 
cable across this strait, and thus uniting the two 
worlds on this old-new side. On the Asiatic coast, 
Russia gave every encouragement to the enterprise, 
promising right of way through Siberia, and even the 
construction of some of the line. On the American 
side, Russia could also be of assistance, since she had 
by discovery taken possession of the entire northwest 
coast, to which she gave the name of Russian America, 
In 1799 the Russian American Fur Company had 
been given a monopoly over the region. ^ 

Having obtained concessions from the governments 
of England, Russia, and the United States, the Western 

^ The withdrawal of Russia from tlie middle parts of the Pacific 
coast of North America was described in chapter XXV. 

429 



430 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

Union Extension Telegraph Company, in 1865 ^ began 
to construct a line from New Westminster, near Van- 
couver's Island, northward along the Cascade range 
of mountains in British America. Other pa.rties 
began work at different points along the line. But 
two years later the company informed Congress that 
the project had been abandoned at a point some eight 
hundred and fifty miles north of New Westminster, 
after an expenditure of over three million dollars. 
The success of a cable across the Atlantic Ocean, 
after many trials, had proved fatal to the all-land 
project. 

The first attempt to lay an Atlantic cable by pay- 
ing it out from a vessel was stopped three hundred 
and thirty-four miles west of Ireland by the parting 
of the wire. The second attempt was made by start- 
ing in two directions from mid-ocean, but the cable 
again broke of its own weight. A third attempt 
from mid-ocean laid a cable to each shore, and for 
about a month messages were sent over it ; but 
the line was defective, and the current gradually 
failed.^ The fourth attempt started from the 
shore, but parted at a distance of one thouand 
miles. In 1866 a fifth attempt was made with 
an improved cable. It consisted of six strands of 



^ The agitation of this subject was begun as early as 1856. The 
various companies are sometimes called the Overland Telegraph 
Company, the Russian-American Telegraph Company, etc. 

'■^Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a poem entitled "DeSauty," sug- 
gests that the chief electrician of the company, from whom the 
first message, "All right," had come, was a product of galvanic 
action and had perished with the current. 

Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! 
There is no De Sauty now there is no current! " 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A COLONIAL SYSTEM 431 

wire laid around a seventh, covered with four layers 
of gutta percha and an outside covering of ten solid 
galvanized wires, each surrounded by five strands of 
white Manila yarn laid in tarred hemp. Between 
Ireland and Newfoundland the Great Eastern and her 
convoy covered 1,669 miles, and paid out 1,864 miles 
of this new cable. In February, 1866, a message 
was sent to President Johnson announcing the com- 
plete success of the Atlantic cable. The continents 
were at last linked together, and new-world enterprise 
had accomplished the task. 

The different parties engaged on the telegraph line 
in Russian America were like exploring parties in an 
unknown land. They brought back stories of streams 
filled with fish, of vast forests, of mineral wealth, and 
a northern climate ameliorated by the warm Japan 
current running along the coast. Newspapers were 
filled with their descriptions. The old land-hunger 
began to be felt again. The western star marking 
the ** destiny" of America was once more in the 
ascendency. Our relations with Russia suddenly 
assumed importance. 

Russia spoke first. When a special commissioner 
carried to the czar the congratulations of Congress 
upon his escape from assassination, his secretary of 
foreign affairs assured the new country of the most 
friendly feeling of the old, resting entirely upon com- 
mercial agreements.^ His majesty himself also com- 
mented on the pleasant relations existing between 

^ Treaties and conventions between the United States and Russia 
had been made in 1824, 1832, and 1854, Russia had twice offered 
her services as mediator in the war of 1812, and later acted as 
arbiter in the final settlement with Great Britain. 



432 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

the two countries, saying, "The two peoples have no 



injuries to remember 



In truth, Russia, in her 



unending struggle with England in the east, was the 
first European nation to appreciate the growing 
importance of the American people, and to wish to 
gain their allegiance by a benefit conferred. Then, 
too, Russia was just entering upon the emancipation 
of her serfs, and the struggle which the United 

States had been en- 
gaged in for the ulti- 
mate end of emanci- 
pation proved a new 
bond between them. 
During that contest, 
w hen England 
seemed to favor the 
Confederate states, 
and France sent Max- 
imilian to Mexico, a 
Russian fleet liad ap- 
peared in American 
waters " as a demon- 
stration of good-will 
and respect," accord- 
ing to Secretary Sew- 
ard.^ Russia also had 
permitted the United 
States to carry prizes into her ports, and had never 
received an agent of the enemy. 




ALASKAN TRADING POST 



^ The tradition that the commander of the fleet had orders to aid 
the Federals if England interfered overtlj' for the Confederates can 



not be authoritatively verified. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A COLONIAL SYSTEM 433 

The cordial feeling thus engendered between the 
two nations was brought to a material basis in 1866 
by a memorial from the inhabitants of Washington 
territory asking Congress to secure permission for 
them to cure fish, repair vessels, and secure fuel and 
water in Russian America. The charter of the great 
monopoly called the Russian American Fur Com- 
pany, which under a Russian charter had controlled 
the region since 1799, expired in 1867, and furnished 
an opportune time for Russia to dispose of this out- 
lying and almost useless province. During the 
Crimean war it had barely escaped capture by the 
English. Therefore at four o'clock in the morning of 
March 30, 1867,^ a treaty was signed by Baron 
Stoeckl, the Russian minister to the United States, 
and William H. Seward, secretary of state, by which, 
upon ratification, Russian America should become the 
property of the United States upon payment of seven 
million dollars. Two hundred thousand dollars were 
added to buy off all company claims existing under 
Russian contracts. As in the case of Louisiana, the 
United States as a neutral had profited by the old- 
world jealousy of England. 

The treaty was ratified by the Senate with only two 
dissenting votes, but in providing the money, the 
House showed a dissent of forty-three, to one hundred 
and thirteen affirmative. Some of this opposition was 
due to the reconstruction difficulties with President 

^ Seward hoped to redeem the administration of President John- 
son by rallying the "patriotism" of the people with a new acces- 
sion of territory. Permission to make the sale reached the Russian 
minister by cable in the evening, and the transaction was hurried 
through before morning. 



434 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



Johnson, but there was also objection made to the 
purchase of outlying and non-contiguous territory ; 
that it meant a new and dangerous policy ; and that 
it was favored only by those who saw opportunity of 
investment in the new industries thus opened or who 

wanted some co- 
lonial office/ The 
country was in 
the flush of vic- 
tory after the 
close of the Civil 
war, and the usual 
jingoism and 
claptrap about 
hauling down the 
flag was indulged 
in by those favor- 
ing the expendi- 
ture. "The flag 
should float over 
every foot of the 
continent, " it was 
declared in de- 
bate. " Our aim 
shall be to have no neiglibors at all." " The jaws of 
the nation must swallow it (British America) up." 
Beneath all lay tlie feeling that in this transaction 
England would be in some way injured, and revenge 
thus had for the loss of a portion of the Pacific coast 

^ Majority and minority reports for and against appropriating the 
purchase money may be found in House Report 37, 4()tli Cong. 2nd 
Sess. See also debates in the "Congressional Globe." 40th Cong. 
2d Sess., Part 4, and Senator Sumner's able speech, in his works. 




ALASKAN TOTEM I'OLK; 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A COLONIAL SYSTEM 435 

ill the Oregon coiuitiy compromise. Bitter regret 
was expressed for this loss, since otherwise American 
dominion would now extend unbroken from the Gulf 
of California to Bering Strait. In any event, the 
acquisition of Alaska^ would give the United States a 
"jurisdictional preponderance" in the coming scene 
of commercial conflict — the Pacific. 

Few could have foreseen the far-reaching effects of 
this first expansion over non-contiguous territory. It 
had crept in gently, and under the thought that it 
ought to be contiguous and w^ould have been so if 
the upper Oregon country had not been abandoned. 
The word "colony" was not employed; indeed it 
would have been looked upon almost with horror by 
the American people. Yet the first x^roposition to 
create a territorial government was scarcely con- 
sidered in Congress, and the military rule which 
General Rousseau set up on taking possession was 
allowed to continue, ^ the laAVS of the United States 
simply being extended over the new land, and a 

^Opponents had suggested in ridicule the name " Walrussia," a 
combination of walrus and Eussia. "Polario," and "American 
Siberia," came from the same source. Alaska, a native word, is 
said to mean "great land," and was suggested by Charles Sumner 
or Major-General Ilalleck (House Exec. Doc. 177, 40th Cong. 2d 
Sess., page 58). It was at first spelled Aliaska. 

2 The ceremonies incident to the transfer, as described by the cor- 
respondent of a San Francisco paper, are printed in House Exec. 
Doc. 125, 40th Cong. 2d Sess. The Russian troops formed on the 
parapet in front of the governor's house at Sitka on the right of 
the government flag-staff. The American troops, disembarking 
from their transport, formed on the left of the staff. As spectators, 
there were naval officers, marines, and some sixty civilians, includ- 
ing six American and six Russian women. The flags were exchanged 
on the staff amidst salutes, followed by formal words of delivery 
and acceptance. The tears of the Russian governor's wife repre- 
sented the feeling of her people upon seeing this first dismember- 
ment of the Muscovite empire. 



436 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

customs district created. Here was a colony in all 
senses of the word, and it was to be the beginning of 
the American colonial system. So insidiously does 
colonial precedent grow. 

Indeed, the old colonial method of company monop- 
oly so offensive in the early day was adopted in 1870, 
when the Alaskan Commercial Company was given 





I ""r fk*J ^^^B s^" s^ '" "■f^ 


£^H^^V -J^ ^ 


ipg-» ^B 




^^^^^^ 



ALTAK OF RUSSIAN CHURCH, SITKA 



seal fishery rights. The government was urged to 
this action by "special agents" sent to examine the 
condition of the country. In truth, the government 
was helpless. It had a colony on its hands without 
any arrangement having been made for its control. 
Self-government seemed impossible. It was said that 
there were only one hundred and twenty-five white 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A COLONIAL SYSTEM 437 

men in the whole country. The United States was 
forced into the very colonial measures which it had 
always condemned. But it made two exceptions. 
Former colonial policy made colonies profitable by 
taxing their inhabitants ; the United States exploited 
Alaska through its resources. Formerly the home 
government extorted profits from the colony ; the 
United States permitted corporate organizations to 
do it.^ As a result of this first experiment in farming 
out a colony, the United States now possesses a 
''squeezed orange" in Alaska; the great industries 
like the salmon fisheries, the sea otter and seal 
fisheries, wantonly exhausted or in the hands of 
enriched corporations ; the natives starving or de- 
stroyed through intemperate habits which the govern- 
ment is impotent to hinder ; ^ the colony frequently 
used as a refuge for carpet-baggers and disappointed 
candidates for better places ; and the control of the 

^ It is impossible to consider the manner in which this thirty-year 
monopoly of the seal fisheries was forced through Congress in 1870 
without suspicion that undue influence was used. Propositions to 
advertise for bids, to lessen the period, etc., were not listened to. 
The clause, "with due regard for the parties already engaged in 
the trade," gave advantage to the company which had already 
bought up the buildings of the former Russian Company. Monop- 
oly under government privilege was as objectionable in 1870 as in 
the case of the East India Tea Company in 1770. Only the Alaskans 
were not British colonists. They could not revolt. 

^ Until 1884 Alaska was held under a military rule, notwith- 
standing the pledge of citizenship given to Russia, and regard- 
less of the attention called to it in the messages of different 
presidents. It was to the interest of the controlling company to 
prevent immigration by suppressing information, and to the admin- 
istrations to head off possible criticism. Occasionally a visitor like 
President Jordan, of Leland Stanford University (in the Atlantic 
Monthly for November, 1898), has ventured to tell the truth about 
Alaska. The past history of this first United States colony will 
probably lie buried under the common pass- word in that distant 
country, " No one comes to Alaska for his health." 



438 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

country so dispersed among the various departments 
of the national government that no one has sufficient 
power or responsibility. The reforms recently pro- 
posed are thirty years too late. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

SUDDEN EXPANSION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 

At the time of the purchase of Ahiska, a rise of 
expansion fever became manifest. The war passion 
had not yet subsided. President Johnson, in his 
message to Congress in 1867, expressed his belief that 
" the West Indies naturally gravitate to and may be 
expected ultimately to be absorbed by the continental 
states, including our OAvn." He would leave this to 
"the process of natural political gravitation," but 
in the meantime, by a treaty with the king of Den- 
mark, he attempted to purchase two of the Virgin 
Islands as coaling stations. Owing to the Reconstruc- 
tion difficulty, his action was not ratified by the 
Senate. Later President Grant endeavored to secure 
the consent of the Senate to the annexation of the 
island of Santo Domingo after its inhabitants had 
given consent, but the fear that private instead of 
public interests would be benefited prevented its rati- 
fication. At another time it was proposed in Con- 
gress to extend a protectorate over both Santo 
Domingo and Hayti.^ The old anti-Spanish feeling 
did not fail to appear during this excitement. Spain 

1 It is impossible to separate the question of these West India 
Islands from that of "civil rights." In the excitement of giving 
citizenship to the American negro, many people persuaded them- 
selves into the belief that the world was ready for self-government. 
There was also undoubtedly a wish to impose even more colored 
citizens upon the pow^erless southerners who objected to the Four- 
teenth Amendment. 

439 



440 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

had long since been elbowed off the entire western 
hemisphere, save the two West India islands of Cuba 
and Porto Rico. She had refused flatly to sell these 
to the United States at the time of the Florida pur- 
chase, and the refusal was repeated during Polk's 
administration. Still further alarmed by the Ostend 
Manifesto,^ she watched with apprehension the dispo- 
sition of the United States to grant belligerent rights 
to tlie Cubans in their revolution in 1868. The 
seizure in the islands of the estates of suspected 
persons, involving the property of many American 
citizens, and the subsequent incident of the Virginius 
intensified the anti-Spanish feeling.^ However, Spain 
consented to pay damages, and the temporary sup- 
pression of the rebellion, together with her promise 
to reform her Cuban control, postponed the final 
issue of the long-standing case between the American 
and the Spaniard. 

The unusual industrial expansion w^iich followed 
the period of reconstruction, and the opening of the 
south as a new field for investments, quieted the 
demands of capital and allayed for the time the ter- 
ritorial expansion feeling. But colonial sentiment 
was simply awaiting precipitation. The first disturb- 
ing event occurred on the Pacific side after a quarter 
of a century of quiet. Since 1825 the Sandwich Islands 

^ The United States ministers to Spain, Great Britain, and France 
met at Ostend, Belgium, and volunteered an opinion that the 
United States would be warranted in seizing Cuba unless Spain 
agreed to sell it. The proposition was violently opposed by the 
anti-slavery element in America. 

^The Virginius, a vessel supposed to be bound for Cuba under 
the United States flag, was captured by the Spanish, and a number 
of the officers and men executed. 



SUDDEN EXPANSION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 441 

had been headquarters for American whale fishermen 
in the Pacific. Boston capital opened a trading house, 
imported sheep, and developed the native resources. 
By 1897 nearly two hundred and fifty thousand tons 
of sugar, the entire exportation, were sent to the 
United States. American missionaries had entered 
with American trade. At intervals presidential mes- 
sages called the attention of Congress to the growing 
American investments and the necessity of closer 
political relations. The native king, Kalakaua, was 
allowed to remain undisturbed on his throne, but every 
effort for several years to secure the ratification of a 
treat}^ with him was defeated in the Senate by the 
sugar interests in America. 

At last, in 1875, the king visited the United States 
in person, and a treaty was effected which gave 
a monopoly to American trade. The colony was 
gradually coming in. The cession of a harbor for 
coaling purposes was followed in 1887 by the land- 
ing of marines from a United States man-of-war to 
protect the king against some insurgents. The insur- 
rection had been caused by a new constitution pro- 
mulgated by the king at the instigation of the 
resident whites. The death of the king in 1891 and 
the accession of his sister, precipitated a collision 
between American and British interests.^ These 
were represented ultimately by a Committee of Public 
Safety and the queen, and the abdication of the latter 
was reluctantly secured. During this time American 
marines were landed and a protectorate declared 

^ The ascendency of the Americans is set forth by Edmund Janes 
Carpenter in "The American in Hawaii." 



,LJ 



442 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

under the American flag. An annexation treaty fol- 
lowed of course, but before adoption the whole ques- 
tion became involved in American politics, and 
arraigned the two great parties on the new lines they 
occupy on the question at the present day. 

The Republican party, as the descendant of Hamil- 
ton, would naturally be in favor of centralization and 
the administration of outlying territory from the 
home office. Being the party of large invested 
interests, it would find them best subserved as a 
whole by colonial opportunities and new fields for 
exploitation. Then, too, being a party led by reason 
rather than party traditions, it could the more readily 
adapt itself to new conditions. Its only difficulty 
would be found in adjusting to a colonial system the 
protective tariff policy to which it stands pledged.^ 

The Democratic party, on the other hand, as the 
party of the individual and the defender of his rights, 
must look with disfavor upon any form of government 
which works injustice to any man, and proceeds 
without the consent of the governed. Bound by the 
traditions of the past, it would view with repugnance 
any departure from the early established principles of 
self-government. It Is antagonistic to the preponder- 
ance of invested intel^ests, and to legislation in tlieir 

^ In the session of Congress which closed in June, 1900, a shrewd 
leader of this party inventea a theory that the Constitution does 
not extend to the colonies, but only to the mainland. In that waj' 
his party was able to vote the f^rst tariff on one of the new posses- 
sions. If the people support this doctrine, the American colo- 
nies are completely at the mercy of the home government. The 
revolting American colonists of the days of 1776 based their claims 
upon the unwritten English constitution. Had they not been 
under the protection of that constitution, they must have been 
veritable slaves. 



SUDDEN EXPANSION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 443 

behalf. Pledged to retrenchment of expenses and 
all possible reduction of taxes, it would oppose the 
burden of an army and navy adequate to a colonial 
system. 

Such would naturally be the positions of the two 
parties on the question of territorial expansion. Yet 
every addition of territory — Louisiana, the Floridas, 
Texas, Oregon, California, and Alaska, has been 
accomplished under Democratic administrations or 
under men at one time affiliated with that party. 
The attitude of President Cleveland toward Hawaii 
seemed to foreshadow the reversal of parties and 
the return to their natural principles which took 
place in the campaign of 1900. 

The renewed contest over Hawaii was most 
unequal, and, as has always been the case, expansion 
won. The opposition is ever swept off its feet by the 
appeal to "patriotism," and the old cry that "if we 
don't do it some one else will." It was England's 
concern over the absorption of Hawaii which at last 
brought about that event under a Republican admin- 
istration, after having been defeated by a Democratic 
president. 

This annexation of Hawaii in July, 1898, had been 
hastened by an incident connected with another part 
of the Pacific ocean, which showed the necessity for 
more places of refuge. In order to damage the enemy, 
an American fleet had sailed into and occupied a bay 
in the Philippine Islands on the Asiatic side of the 
ocean. This in turn was brought about by the condi- 
tion of affairs in a Spanish island on the other side of 
the American continent. In such manner do events 



444 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

hasten, when prepared for by a long train of causes, 
powerful though unforeseen. 

The Cubans had again revolted against Spanish 
rule, and the United States had at last interfered. 
In this, as in former cases, it is impossible to separate 
disinterested motives from the selfishness of trade. 




The American people as a whole, antagonistic by 
inheritance to Spanish rule, although not knowing 
why, were moved by the highest motives in thus 
meddling in a neighbor's quarrels. It can not be 
doubted that American investors, who saw their 



* From a photograph by Dr. C. F. Millspaugh, the Field Museum, 
Chicago. 



SUDDEN EXPANSION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 445 

Cubuii property deteriorating under the apparently 
endless warfare, and American merchants and manu- 
facturers, who were deprived of the former Cuban 
trade, assisted in bringing about intervention/ 

From a larger point of view the loss of an American 
man-of-war in a Spanish harbor was but the moving 
incident in a series. The time was ripe for elbowing 
the Spaniard from the hemisphere, as he had been 
elbowed from the continent. Only in the light of 
history can one comprehend the sudden outburst of 
anti- Spanish rage ; the impulse which led a fair- 
minded people, noted for fair dealing, to accuse 
another nation of such a dastardly deed, and to be 
influenced into a declaration of war on the unproved 
charge. The mass of the people was not led by 
cupidity in entering upon this war, and even the 
government officials in the beginning were not 
moved by sordid purposes. But no sooner had peace 
come, and the nation found itself with three new 
possessions on hand, than the old land-hunger began 
to assert itself. The prospect of new fields for invest- 
ment of capital, and new markets for manufactured 
products, was too tempting, and American interests 
began to clamor in the legislative halls. The other 
moving factor in government, the people, was appeased 
by the old-time appeal to "patriotism." The flag 
must never be hauled down. Also the old-time 
excuse, "unless we take them some one else will," 
was brought out and its power proved undiminished. 

^ In 1892, just before the last insurrection, the American trade 
with Cuba reached its highest point, 1103,310,600; but in three 
years of irregular warfare it fell a total of §69,000,000. 



446 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

But the chief obstacle to carrying out the first high 
ideals of the people was the one ever present in deal- 
ing with inferior races — their unfitness for self-govern- 
ment. It was therefore easy to argue ourselves into 
the belief that our ' ' duty" and responsibility demanded 

a retention of the is- 
lands until ready for 
self-government. Yet 
centuries of lack of 
training for citizenship 
can not be overcome 
by years or even dec- 
ades of training. It 
is a work of evolution.. 
In the meantime, the 
provinces are to all 
intents and purposes' 
colonies, and can be 
used for the benefit of the country holding them, if 
such sordid motives prevail/ 

As a result of this territorial expansion and under 
these complications, the United States finds itself 
plunged still deeper into a colonial system. It sud- 
denly becomes aware of the new surroundings into 
which it has been slowly drifting for a quarter of a 




ii^ 



TIIK EXPANSION OF THK AMERICAN 



'The term "colonial" is sometimes very incorrectly applied to 
the western territories before they become states of the United 
States. They are hot colonies, but contiguous regions held in trust 
until they are placed on an equality with their rulers. The presence 
of Americans always promises their ultimate predominance. But 
in the expansions over outlying territory, beginning with Alaska, 
this prospect is rendered impossible for decades to come, owing to 
geographical, racial, and climatic conditions. Thej^ are true colo- 
ijies, although this word will be very sparingly used at first. 



SUDDEN EXPANSION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 447 

century.^ It finds that a new world does not make 
new inhabitants ; that the impulses which moved 
men in the past are still powerful ; that the weak 
must continue to give way to the strong. 

This new awakening must be a blow to those who 
supposed that the isolation which marked the youth 
of the United States could continue ; that this 
exclusion during apprenticeship meant a "manifest 
destiny" varying from that of other peoples ; that we 
were intended by some special dispensation of Provi- 
dence to avoid the cupidity, the conquests, the accom- 
panying cruelties of the onward march of that relative 
thing we call civilization. Having reached our 
majority, we see our "plain duty" to take part in the 
world's counsels simply because men have hitherto 
always done so. To avoid it would mean selfishness, 
egotism, and possibly disintegration. We can not 
escape it because we have no desire to escape it. We 
shall cooperate in the common duty of imposing upon 
others a civilization bearing the only absolute and 
immutable criterion of right— its survival over others. 

^ It is impossible as yet to grasp fully the immensity of the 
American colonial possessions. The extent and population of the 
several parts are thus estimated : 

Square Miles. Population. 
Alaska ..,„..... 521,409 82,053 

Hawaii 6,470 109,020 

I?hilippines ........ 114,356 8,025,000 

Porto Rico 3,368 813,937 

Cuba .......... 43,319 1,631,687 

688,922 10,611,690 

The territory is nearly double that of the original thirteen states; 
the population is greater than that of the whole United States in 
1820. The retention of Cuba in the above table is prophecy based 
on human nature. 



0) 



448 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

And civilization will be found kind to that generation 
of inferiors which shall eventually survive although 
many intervening ones must perish. To harness the 
savage living in the stone age to the car of civilization, 
in the steam age was death to the savage ; but it meant 
a higher life for those of his posterity who endured. 

To the student of the larger politics the culminating 
point in the territorial expansion of the American 
people, made possible by their social expansion, is found 
in the spread of English speech.^ The English of the 
Americans has reached Asia to meet the English of the 
parent country coming from the opposite direction. 
It means the beginning of world division on lines of 
language and trade if not entirely on race affiliations. 
Having thus entered on the new era of world politics,^ 
the inherited land-hunger of the Saxon will manifest 
itself more and more and make cooperation with the 
parent country easier. It is safe to say that the 
United States will be in at the geographical, or, what 
is usually the first stage, the commercial, division of 
China. She has sufficient damage claims upon Tur- 
^ key to be interested there. In Africa alone of the 

^ ^ This is illustrated by the map on the opposite page based on 
^- Demolin's "Anglo-Saxon Superiority." 

^;: "^A Washington, D. C, newspaper in 1867 said: "So fixed is the 

feeling in behalf of territorial expansio'nin'the national heart that 

it is not to be questioned or disputed ; and any party or set of men 

putting themselves in opposition to tiiis irresistible current of opin- 

__il ion must go under." Time has verified the truth of the prediction. 

When Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, in April, 1900, made a plea 

"^r for the republic of the fathers, for the principles upon which the 

^ government was founded, for the absolute equality of the brown 

^ man as well as the white, for a government resting on the consent 

(. of the governed, he was heard only with the tolerance which his 

age and his past record commanded. His words fell on a cold and 

unresponsive audience. He was speaking the language of the 

abandoned past. 



SUDDEN EXPAT^SION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 449 




450 THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

fore-doomed countries, she has as yet no interest but 
it may come as unexpectedly as have some in the 
past. 

A study of the map of the world whereon is depicted 
the land possessed by and that threatened by the 
people of English S23eech is warrant for a prophecy 
of the coming reign of that language and the people 
using it. The only geographical competitor is Russia. 

That the United States will succeed in every respect 
in this new role no one expects. She has not suc- 
ceeded in governing perfectly her continental home 
possessions. Indeed that a republic with its frequent 
change of administrations and petty officials, with its 
necessarily large proportion of incompetent servants, 
with its constant danger from spoils seekers and 
patriots for revenue, with its invested interests seek- 
ing a colonial market, that such a government is at 
all fitted for holding colonies has not yet been proved. 
But, as was said in the beginning, the success of the 
past is the hope of the future. 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, The, 361, 404-409. 

Adams, John, 59, 182, 184. 

Adams, Mrs. John, 183. 

Adams, John Quincy, 292, 301. 

African Coast, Explorations 
along the, 22. 

Alamo, The, 318. 

Alaska, Purchase of, 429-438. 

Albion, Illinois, 247. 

Alcott, A. Bronson, 295. 

Alexandria, Virginia, 177. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 249. 

Alien Peoples in the English 
Colonies, 36. 

Alleghanies, First Roads across 
the, 88. 

Amana Community, Iowa, 388. 

Ambrister, Robert, 218. 

America, Early Portion of, 31. 

American Anti-Slavery Society, 
407. 

American Bottom, The, 224. 

American Desert, The, 343. 

American People, Formation of 
the, 12. 

American, The, as a New Type, 
47. 

Americans in Spanish Louisiana, 
193. 

Amis, Thomas, and the Spanish, 
189. 

Amusements, Colonial, 53. 

Annexation of the Floridas, 217. 

Arbuthnot, Alexander 218. 

Arkansas Territory, 209, 328. 

Armada. The Spanish, Destruc- 
tion of, 32. 

Articles of Confederation, Fail- 
ure of, 86, 255. 

Ashburton Treaty, The, 306. 

Ashe, Thomas, 293. 

Astor, John Jacob, 303. 

Asylum, Pennsylvania, 378. 



Atchison, General, 359. 
Atchison Town Company, 357. 
Austin, Moses, 313. 
Austin, Stephen, 313, 

Balloon, The, 167, 168. 

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 275. 

Baltimore & Potomac Canal, 378. 

Baptists, The, 166. 

Barlow, Joel, and the Scioto 
Company, 129. 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 216. 

Beissel (Beizel), Conrad, 378. 

Bennett, James Gordon, 296, 299. 

Benton, Thomas H., 367. 

Bering, Vitus, 429. 

Bethleliem, Pennsylvania, 381. 

"Biglow Papers," The, 323. 

Bimeler (Baumeler), Joseph, 384. 

Birkbeck, Morris, 392. 

Black Swamp, The, 236, 253, 268. 

Blanchard, the Aeronaut, 168. 

Blennerhasset, Harman, 214, 215. 

Boatmen, Ohio River, 140-146. 

Boone, Daniel, 93, 96, 99, 193. 

Boonesborougli, Kentucky, 
Founded, 99. 

"Border Ruffians," 359. 

Boundaries, National, of 1783, 78. 

Boundary Line, The Southwest- 
ern, expands, 188. 

Boundary of Texas, 320-323. 

Bounty Lands, 108. 

Bowie, James, 318. 

Braddock Road, 89, 124, 147. 

Breck, Rev., Preaches at Mari- 
etta, 123. 

Bridgewater, Duke of, and Ca- 
nals, 264. 

Brisbane, Albert, 397. 

British Troops in American 
Forts, 127. 

Brook Farm Community, 396. 



451 



452 



INDEX 



Brown, John, 360, 408. 

Bryant, William CuUen, 358. 

Buckeye, The, 154. 

Buffalo, The, 94, 155, 239. 

Burns, David, 180. 

Burr's Expedition, 214, 312, 314. 

Cabet, Etienne, 393. 
Cable, The Atlantic, 430, 431. 
Cabot, John, Exj^lorations of, 29. 
Cabot, Sebastian, Explorations 

of, 30. 
Cabral Gains Land for Portugal, 

30. 
Cahokia, 132, 133, 206. 
Cairo, Illinois, 273. 
Calhoun, John C, 249. 
California, Discovery of Gold in, 

336-351, 363, 416. 
California, Conquest of, 324, 335. 
California, Constitutional Con- 
vention of, 348. 
Calk, William, Extract from 

Journal of, 103. 
Camp Meetings, 402, 403. 
Campus Martins, at Marietta, 

121, 123. 
Canada, Boundary with, 80. 
Canals in the United States, 264- 

269. 
Capital, The National, 175. 
Cathay, Influence of, 20. 
Cartier, Jacques, Voyages of, 30. 
Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, 

275, 276. 
Carroll, Daniel, 177. 
Cass, Lewis, 353. 
Celoron's plates, 74. 
Central Pacific Railroad, 368, 

372. 
"Ceresco" communit5^ 398. 
Channing, William Ellery, 295, 

395, 397. 
Chicago, 236, 273. 282, 286, 289, 

363, 367. 
Chillicothe, Ohio, 126. 
China, Attractions of, 20. 
China, The Partition of, 448. 
Chouteau House, St. Louis, 223. 
Church, The Colonial, 50. 
Church and State, Divorce of, 

165, 423. 



Cincinnati, 125, 141, 145, 251. 

Cities, Colonial, 67, , > 

Cities, Growth of, 426-428. -<^ 

Claiborne, Gov., 208. 

Clark, George Rogers, 79, 132, 
146, 189, 226. 

Clark, Captain William, 212, 
303. 

Clay, Henry, 136, 264, 312. 

Cleaveland, Moses, 128, 249. 

Cleveland, Ohio, 128, 355. 

"Clermont," The, 172, 272. 

Climate, Influences of, on Ex- 
pansion, 10. 

Clinton, DeWitt, 267 268. 

Coal in Western Pennsylvania, 
139. 

Coahuila and Texas, State of, 
321. 

Cobbett, William, 182, 248. 

Colleges, Early, 159-165. 

Colonial Amusements, 53. 

Colonial Church, 50. 

Colonial Executions, 52. 

Colonial Newspapers, 60. 

Colonial Post-office, 64. 

Colonial Schools, 62. 

Colonia' Svstem of the United 
States, 429-450. 

Colonization, Influence of, in 
Expansion, 17. 

Colonization Society, The Amer- 
ican, 405. 

Columbia, District of, 179. 

Columbia River, 211, 212, 303, 
307, 308. 

Columbus, Ohio, Founding of, 
125. 

Columbus, Bartholomew, 22. 

Columbus, First Voyage of, 26. 

Columbus, Portraits of, 29. 

Columbus, Religious Zeal of, 26. 

Colonies, English, Life in the, 48. 

Colonies, English, Population of 
the, 48. 

Communities in America, 376- 
401. 

Communication and Union, 257. 

Compromise, The Missouri, 311. 

Conestoga Wagon, 243. 

Congregationalists, 166. 

''Congress Lands," 115. 



INDEX 



453 



Congress Meets in Washington, 

180. 
Connecticut Reserve, 114, 128. 
Connecticut Land Company, 128. 
Conocoheague Creek, 176. 
Constitutionality of Louisiana 

Purchase, 200. 
Cooper, Peter, 276. 
Cotton Gin, The, 173. 
Cortez, 324. 
County System in Northwest 

Territory, 122. 
Coureurs de Bois, 233, 239. 
Credit Mobilier, 372. 
Crockett, David, 318. 
Crusades, Beginnings of the, 18, 

19. 
Cuba, Taking Possession of, 444- 

450. 
Cuba, The Ten Years' War in, 

440. 
Cumberland Gap, The, 95. 
Cumberland National Road, 148, 

259-264. 
Cutler, Manasseh, 110, 120, 123, 

129, 152, 159, 186. 
Curtis, George William, 396, 397. 

Dana, Charles A., 396, 397. 

Dana, Richard Henry, 326. 

Danish Islands, Negotiations for, 
439. 

Danville, Kentucky, Founded, 
99. 

Danville, Kentucky, Political 
Club, 101. 

Darkness, the Sea of, Perils of, 
23. 

Davenport, Iowa, 364. 

Delaware and the Swedes, 39. 

Democracy, Growth of, 419. 

Detroit, 132, 233, 251, 273. 

"Dial," The, 395. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 22. 

Dickens, Charles, Quoted, 248. 

Direction, Changes of, in Mi- 
gration, 9. 

Dismal Swamp Canal, 265. 

District of Columbia Laid Out, 
177. 

Domain, National, in 1783, 83. 

Douglas, Stephen A., 353, 354. 



Dubuque, Julien, 286. 
Dunkers in America, 378. 
"Dutch Flat Swindle," 369. 
Dutch Settlements in North 

America, 36. 
Dyer, Harrison Gray, 297. 

Eastern Branch of the Potomac, 
176. 

Eben-Ezer Community, 387. 

Economy, Pennsylvania, 383. 

Editor, The Colonial, 64 

Education, Public, in America, 
422. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 40. 

ElHcott, Andrew, 179, 191. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 295, 396. 

Emigrant Aid Societies, 356-363. 

Emigrants to America, Suffering 
of, 41. 

England and the Oregon Coun- 
try, 301-309. 

English Colonies, Life in the, 48. 

English Criticism of America, 
292. 

English, Discoveries of, in 
America, 29. 

English Speech, The Spread of, 
448-450. 

Ephrata Community, 378. 

Episcopal Church, The, 166. 

Erie Canal, The, 267, 268 354 

Erie Railroad, The, 284. 

European Life in the Fifteenth 
Centurv. 17. 

Evans, Oliver, 274. 

Expansion, Territorial — Louis- 
iana, 193; Floridas, 217; Texas, 
310; California, 324; Oregon, 
301; Alaska, 429; Hawaii, 440; 
Philippines, 443; Porto Rico, 
445 ; Cuba, 444. 

Expansion, American, on the 
Western Side, 15. 

Expansion Necessary to Prog- 
ress, 9. 

Expansion, The First American 
Colonial, 435-438. 

Expansion, Political Parties on, 
443. 

Expansion Questions Settled, 202. 

Executions, Colonial, 52. 



r 



454 



INDEX 



Fairfax, Lord, 90. 

Falls of the Ohio, 145. 

Faneuil, Peter, 45. 

Fashion, Extravagance of, 185. 

"Federal Hall," New York City, 
175. 

Fearon, Henry Bradshaw, 293. 

Fifteenth Century, European 
Life in the, 17. 

"Fifty-four-forty or Fight," 308. 

Filson Club of Louisville, 97, 
103. 

Filson, John, and Kentucky, 102. 

Fire Companies, Colonial, 67. 

"Fire Lands" in Northwest Ter- 
ritory, 114, 128. 

Fitch's Boat, 171, 173, 270. 

Flint, Rev. Timothy, 147, 263. 

Flint River, 190. 

Floridas, Boundary of, 1783, 83, 
188. 

Floridas, The, Annexed, 217, 219, 
312, 320. 

Floridas, The, Invaded by Amer- 
icans, 215. 

Flower, George, 247. 

Foreign Settlements, 247. 

Foreigners in America, 36, 424- 
426. 

Fort Hall, 304, 305, 343. 

Fort Kearny, 311. 

Fort Laramie, 311. 

Fort Leavenworth, 351, 358. 

Fort Stephens, 191. 

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 227. 

Forts, American, Retained by 
British, 127. 

Forts in the Northwest Terri- 
tory, 116. 

Forts"^ of the French, 74. 

Fortunes in the Colonies, 55. 

"Forty-niners," 339, 348. 

Fourierism, 397-401. 

France Acquires Louisiana, 193. 

France and the Mississippi Val- 
ley, 69. 

France on the Northwest Coast, 
301. 

Francis, Joseph, 421. 

Frankfort, Kentucky, State 
House at, 100. 

Franklin, Advertisement of, 56. 



Franklin, Independent State of, 

102. 
Franklin, Kansas, 361. 
Free-Soil Party, 408. 
Fremont, John C, 330-332, 408. 
French, Discoveries of, in Amer> 

ica, 30. 
French Forts, 74. 
"French Grant," The, 131. 
French in the English Colonies, 

45. 
French, in the West, Assimila- 
tion of the, 220. 
French in the Illinois Country, 

131-134. 
French-Indian War, 75. 
Frencli Names in the Middle 

West, 228. 
French Refugees in America, 378. 
French routes in the West, 72. 
Friends opposed to Slaverj^ 404. 
Frontier, Greelev on the, 364. 
Frontier, Evolution of the, 238. 
Fuller, Margaret, 395, 396, 397. 
Fulton and the Steamboat, 172, 

270. 

"Gadsden Purchase,** The. 332. 

Gale, George W., 354. 

Galena and Chicago Union Rail- 
road, 289. 

Galena, Illinois, 288. 

Galesburg, Illinois. 354-356. 

Gallatin, Albert, 254, 266. 

Gallipolis Founded b}^ French, 
129-131, 225. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 406- 
409. 

"Genius of Universal Emancipa- 
tion,*' 405. 

Georgia, Territory of, 217. 

German Migration to New York, 
44. 

Germans, Migration of, to Penn- 
sylvania, 40. 

Germans, Pennslyvania, De- 
scription of, 43. 

"Girdled Road,*' The. 128. 

Goddard, Captain, in St. Louis, 
206. 

Gold Coast, Discoveries along 
the, 21. 



INDEX 



455 



Gold Discovered in California, 

336-351, 303, 416. 
Goose Creek, 144. 
''Graham Flour," 404. 
Grant, President, 439. 
Gray, Captain Robert, 211. 
Great Falls of the Potomac, 91. 
Great Lakes, Neutrality of, 81. 
Great Salt Lake, 413. 
Great Western Railroad, 280. 
Greeley, Horace, 296, 358, 364, 

397, 398, 417. 
Grimke sisters, The, 409. 
Gulf Possessions, Rounding Out 

the, 211. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 358. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 176, 199, 
213. 

Harmar, Fort, 116. 120, 123. 

Harmar, General, 133. 

"Harmonists,"- The, 38'2-384, 389. 

Harmony, Pennslyvania, 382. 

Harrison, Fort, Indiana, 227. 

Harrison, William Henry, 125, 
253. 

Harrodsburg, Kentucky, Found- 
ed, 98. 

Harvard University, 161. 

Harte, Bret, 371. 

Hawaii, Annexation of, 440-443. 

''Hawkeve," 363. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 295, 396. 

Hayne, Robert Y., 250. 

Hayti, Insurrection in, 195. 

Henderson Organizes Transyl- 
vania, 98. 

Henry, Joseph, 297. 

Henrj^ Prince, of Portugal, 21. 

Higginson, Thos. Went worth, 
358. 

Highwavs, Locating, in Public 
Lands" 108. 

Hispaniola Lost by Spain, 35. 

Hoar, George F., 448. 

Holland, Michigan, 247. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 161, 
430. 

Homestead Act, 373, 374. 

Honolulu, 338. 

Houston, Samuel, 317, 367. 

Hudson Bay Company, 302-309. 



Hudson, Henry, Adventures of, 
36. 

Huguenots in America, 45. 

Huntington, Collis P. , 368. 

Hutchins, Thomas, U. S. Geog- 
rapher, 105. 

"Icarians," The, 393. 

Illinois Canals, 268. 

Illinois Central Railroad, 373. 

Illinois, Founding of Galesburg, 

354-356. 
Illinois, Railroad Craze of, 282. 
Illinois "Regulators," 412. 
Illinois, The French in, 132, 220. 
Immigration in America, 424-426. 
Inclined Planes, 244. 
Independence, Missouri, 328, 341, 

351. 
Indiana Canals, 268. 
Indiana, Railroad Craze of, 284. 
Indiana, Settlement of, 228. 
Indians, Interest in the, 70. 
Individual, The Rights of the, 

420. 
Inquisitiveness of the Colonists, 

58. 
"Inspirationists," The True, 388. 
Internal Improvements, 256. 
Inventions, American, 421. 
Inventions, Early, 169. 
Iowa, The Making of, 363. 
Irrigation, Beginning of, 415, 
Irving, Washington, 294. 
Isthmus of Panama, 339, 340, 347, 

349, 367. 
Italy Gained No Possessions, 30. 

Jackson, Gen. Andrew, in Flor- 
ida, 218. 

Jackson, President Andrew, 264, 
318, 4'20. 

Jamaica Lost by Spain, 35. 

Japan, Distance to, 25. 

Jefferson on Louisiana, 194-210. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 65, 176, 180, 
184, 212, 215, 420. 

"Jerks," The, 49, 402. 

Johnson, Andrew, 434, 439. 

Kalakaua, David, 441. 
Kanawha Salt, 145, 226. 



456 



INDEX 



Kankakee River, 228. 

Kansas and Nebraska, 351-363, 

368. 
Kansas, First Railroad in, 365. 
Kaskaskia, 132, 133. 
Kearny, Stephen W., 330, 332, 

416. 
Kentucky, Beginnings of, 87. 
Kentucky, Celebration of the 

Fourth of July in, 101. 
Kentucky, Pioneer Hardships in, 

103. 
Kenyon College, 160. 
"King Strang," 413. 
"Knickerbockers," The, 39, 294. 
Knox College, Illinois, 354-356. 
Knox, Mrs., Headdress of, 186. 
Knoxville, Tennessee, 97. 

"Labadists" in America, 377. 
Lafayette, Visit of, 290-292. 
Lake of the Woods, 302. 
Larcora, Lucy. 358. 
Latter Day Saints, 410-416. 
Laussat in New Orleans, 196, 204. 
Lawrence, Kansas, 357, 360, 361. 
Laws, General, of Expansion, 13. 
Laws of Migration in the United 

States, 234. 
Lead Mines in Illinois, 286-289. 
Leaden Plates Buried by French, 

75. 
Leavenworth, Kansas, 360. 
Lee, "Mother" Ann, 379. 
Lee, Rev. Jason, 305. 
L' Enfant, Major, 179. 
Lewis, Meriwether, 212, 303. 
"Liberator," The, 406. 
Liberty Party, 408. 
Library of Congress, 423. 
Licking River, 125. 
Life Car, The, 421. 
Lighthouses, Government, 255. 
Limestone, Kentucky, 100, 116, 

124, 125, 145. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 322, 420. 
Livingston, Robert R., 172, 194 
Log City, Illinois, 255. 
"Log Rolling," 371. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 

296. 
Losantiville, 125. 



Louisiana, District of, 207. 
Louisiana Explored, 213. 
Louisiana Parishes, The, 217. 
Louisiana Purchase, The, 193- 

210, 311, 320, 433. 
Louisiana Purchase, Opposition 

to, 201. 
Louisville, Kentucky, 97, 100, 

146, 226, 272. 
Lowell, James Russell, 323. 
Lundy, Benjamin, 314, 405, 406. 

Macadam, John Loudon, 262. 
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 211, 

302. 
Madison, James, 189, 312. 
Mail Routes, Early, 250. 
Manchester, Founding of, 125. 
"Manifest Destiny," 333. 
Maple Sugar, 154. 
Marbois Sells Louisiana, 196. 
Marco Polo and China, 24. 
Marietta, Ohio, 120, 121, 122, 126, 

127, 134, 140, 145, 272. 
Marryat, Captain, 294. 
Marshall, James Wilson, 336. 
Marshall, John, 292. 
Martineau, Harriet, 294. 
Marquette, Father, 132. 
Massie, Nathaniel, 125, 126, 
McCulloch's Leap, 144. 
Mecklenburg "Declaration," 46. 
Mennonites, 377. 
Methodists, The, 166. 
Mexican War, The, 321-323, 339, 

416. 
Mexico, Invasions of, 212, 311, 

312. 
Mexico, Revolt from Spain, 312. 
Miami City, 125. 
Miami University, 160, 161. 
Michigan Central Railroad, 285. 
Michigan, Proposed Canals in, 

269. 
Michigan, Railroad Craze of , 284. 
Michigan Southern Railroad, 

285. 
Migration in the U. S. , Laws of, 

234. 
Military Roads, 252-255. 
Millennial Church (Shakers), 380. 
Mills in Pioneer Days, 230. 



INDEX 



45? 



Minuit, Peter, and the Swedes, 

39. 
Mississiiipi River, American Set- 
tlers on the, 281. 
Mississippi River, Navigation of 

the, 188, 231, 272. 
Mississippi Valley, Contest for 

the, 69. 
Missouri Compromise, 311, 352, 

353, 356. 
Missouri, Railroad Craze of, 284. 
Missouri River, 212. 
Monterey, California, 327, 329, 

330, 338. 
Montgolfiers, The, 167. 
Monroe Doctrine, The, 218. 
Monroe, James, 195, 290. 
Moore, Tom, 183. 
Moors, Conquered by Spain, 32. 
Moravians, 381. 
More, Sir Thomas, 376. 
Moriscos, Spain Expels the, 34. 
Mormons, 334, 336, 371, 393, 410- 

416. ^ 

Morris, Robert, 182, 265. 
Morse, S. F. B., 297, 298. 
Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 356, 361. 
Mount Pleasant, Ohio, 405. 
Movement of the People, 127. 
Muskingum River, 110, 120, 

121. 

Names, French, in the Middle 
West, 228. 

Napoleon, 194, 216. 

Nashoba Community, 391. 

Nashville, Tennessee, 97. 

National Boundaries of 1783, 78. 

Nauvoo, Illinois, 393, 411, 412. 

Nebraska and Kansas, 351-363, 
364, 368. 

Netherlanders Settle in North 
America, 37. 

Netherlands, Spanish Persecu- 
tion in the, 32. 

New Albion, Illinois, 392. 

New Harmony, Indiana, 383, 390. 

New Helvetia, 327, 336. 

New Jersey, Named, 38. 

New Orleans, 146, 189, 190, 193, 
196, 210, 220, 231, 234, 235, 266, 
271, 272, 290. 



New Orleans, Spanish Adminis- 
tration, 221. 

New Rochelle, New York, Settle- 
ment of, 45. 

Newspapers after the Revolu- 
tion, 167. 

Newspapers in the Colonies, 60. 

Newspapers, Middle Period of, 
296. 

New York Central Railroad, 284. 

New York, Dutch in, 37. 

New York, Germans in, 44. 

New York, Routes across, 127. 

North Carolina Cedes Lands, 192. 

Northwest Territory, Journeying 
to the, 135. 

Northwest Territory, Ordinance 
of the. 111. 

Northwest Territory Organized, 
105, 118, 192. 

Noyes, John Humphrey, 394. 

Nueces River, 321, 322 

OberUn College, 160. 

Officers, Colonial, 67. 

Ogden, Utah, 371. 

Omaha, Nebraska, 352, 369, 371. 

Ohio Canal System, 268. 

"Ohio City," 281. 

Ohio Company, 88. 

Ohio Company of Associates, 

110, 129. 
Ohio, Forming the State of, 135. 
Ohio, Mixed Population of, 127. 
Ohio, Railroad Craze of, 283. 
Ohio River Boats, 140-146. 
Ohio University, 159, 160. 
Ohio Valley, Pioneer Life in, 

149. 
Oneida Community, The, 395. 
Opossum, The 152. 
"Oracta Amphibolis," 274. 
Ordinance of 1787, 85, 114. 
Oregon, 329, 331, 338. 
Oregon Expansion, The, 301- 
809. 
Oregon Trail, The, 307, 341, 345. 
Orleans, Territory of, 207. 
Osawatomie (Ossawatomie) , 361, 

408. 
Oskaloosa, Iowa, 363. 
Ostend Manifesto, The, 440. 



458 



INDEX 



Otis, James, and the Peace of 

1763, 76. 
Owen, Robert, 383, 389-393. 

Pacific Railways, 366-372, 416, 
429. 

Palatines in New York, 44. 

Palmerston, Lord, 330. 

Palos, Columbus Sails from, 27. 

Pamphlets Issued by William 
Penn, 42. 

Panama, Isthmus of, 339, 340, 
347, 349. 

"Pantisocracy,'' 376. 

Parkman, Francis, 343. 

Parsons, General, and the Ohio 
Company, 109, 119, 123. 

Parties, Political, on Expansion, 
442. 

Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 43, 
376. 

Patents, First Issued, 174. 

Paternalism in Government, 260. 

Penn, William, Advertises Penn- 
sylvania, 42. 

Pennsylvania Germans, Descrip- 
tion of, 43. 

Peniisylvania Railroad, 285. 

People, Political Influence of 
the. 13. 

Peoria, Illinois, 363. 

"Perfectionists," The, 394. 

Peter the Hermit, 18. 

Phalansteries, Fourier's, 398-401. 

Philadelphia, 67, 176. 

Philippines, The, 443. 

Phillips, Wendell, 408. 

Pietists in America, 377. 

Pike, Zebulon, 212. 

"Pike's Peak or Bust," 363. 

Pinckney, Tliomas, 190. 

Pitt, Fort, 138. 

Pittsburg, Pennsvlvania, 124, 
136-139, 141, 235, 251, 272, 
292, 383. 

Pioneer Hardships in Kentucky, 
103. 

Pioneer Life in the Ohio Val- 
ley, 149. 

"Pioneer"* Locomotive, 289. 

Pioneer Migration, 239-248. 

Plains, Crossing the, 341-343. 



Plank Roads, 269. 

Platte County Association, 357. 

Polk, James K., 298, 320, 322, 
338, 416. 

Political Parties, Early, 199, 420. 

Political Parties on Expansion, 
442. 

Ponce de Leon, 376. 

Polo, Marco, and China, 24. 

Population of the English Colo- 
nies, 48. 

Population, Spread of, 234. 

Portage Railroad, The, 244. 

Portages in the Mississippi Val- 
lev, 73. 

Portsmouth, Ohio, 145, 355. 

Portugal, Share of, in Western 
World, 30. 

Post Routes. 250. 

Post-office, The Colonial, 64. 

Potomac Navigation Company, 
92. 

Potomac River, 90, 175, 235, 259. 

Pre-emption Act, 373. 

Princeton University, 165. 

Presbyterian Church, 166. 

President's Mansion. The, 183. 

Provincialism, American, 292. 

Public Domain Created, 85. 

Public Land Sales, 117, 375. 

Public Land Svstem, Organiza- 
tion of the, 104.^ 

Public Lands given to enter- 
prises, 269, 369, 373, 374, 375. 

Pullman, Illinois, 428. 

Putnam, Rufus, 120. 

Quakers, Influence of, in Migra- 
tion, 42. 

Quakers, Settlements of, in Penn- 
sylvania, 44. 

Quebec Act, 79. 

Railroad Consolidation, 284. 

Railroad Craze, The, of 1835, 
280-284. 

Railroad in Kansas, 365. 

Railroad, Panama, 349, 350. 

Railroads, Beginnings of, 274. 

Railroads, First System of Con- 
struction of, 278. 

Railroads Versus Canals, 278. 



INDEX 



459 



Railway, A Transcontinental, 
866-372. 

Rapp, George, 882. 

Raymond, Henry J. 296. 

Reforms and Reformers, Amer- 
ican, 402. 

Reforms, Greely on, 418. 

Religious Freedom in America, 
165, 428. 

Religious Zeal of Columbus, 26. 

Republic of Texas, 818-320. 

Revere, Paul, 46. 

Revivals, in America, 49, 402. 

Revolutionary War, End of the, 
83. 

Rio Grande, The, 321, 322. 

Ripon, Wisconsin, 398. 

Road Laws, Colonial, 257. 

Roads, Military, 252. 

Roads, Plank, 269. 

Roads, Post, 250. 

Roman Catholics, The, 166. 

Rotterdam, Embarkation from, 
41. 

Rousseau, Colonel, in Alaska, 435. 

Routes, French, in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, 73. 

Routes Proposed for Pacific Rail- 
way, 367. 

Rumsey's Boat, 170. 

Rush, Dr., on American Extrav- 
agance, 185. 

Russia as a Competitor, 450. 

Russia on the Northwest Coast, 
301, 429. 

Russia Sells Alaska, 429-438. 

Russian American Fur Company, 
429, 438. 

Sacramento, California, 827. 
Salt, Importance of , 145. 
Salt Mountain, Louisiana, 208. 
Sandwich Islands, 884. 
Sandwich Islands, Americans 

in, 440-443. 
San Diego, California, 324, 832. 
San Francisco, California, 825, 

834, 337, 846, 847, 871. 
San Ildefonso, Treaty of, 198. 
San Jose, California, 837. 
Santa Anna, President, 818. 
Santa Barbara, California, 325. 



Santa Fe Trail, 328, 344, 345. 

Santo Domingo, Negotiations 
for, 489. 

Sargasso Sea, 27. 

Sargeant, Winthrop, 119. 

Saxe Weimer, Duke of, Visits 
America, 292. 

Schools, Colonial, 62. 

Scioto CompanJ^ 129. 

Scotch in xlmerica, 46. 

Scotch-Irish in the Colonies, 46. 

Sea of Darkness, Perils of the, 
23. 

Seat of Government, The Na- 
tional, 175. 

Sensitiveness, American, 292. 

"Separatism" ' not American, 
400, 417. 

"Separatists*' of Zoar, 884-387. 

"Seven Ranges," The, Laid off, 
108. 

Sevier, John, in Tennessee, 102. 

Seward, William H., 856, 482. 

Shaker Communities, 379, 880. 

Shaw, Dr. Albert, 894. 

Shawneetown, 143, 227. 

Shippen, Dr., Clothing of , 186. 

Slavery and Freedom Contest, 
310, 352-863. 

Slavery Introduced by Spain, 32. 

Slavery in Texas, 318, 819. 

Slavery in the Northwest Terri- 
tory, 231. 

Sloat, Commodore, 330, 831. 

Sluyter, Peter, 877. 

Smallpox, Inoculation for the, 
66. 

Smith, Joseph, 411, 412. 

Smith, Rev. James, 193. 

"Snags and Sawyers," 272. 

Social Classes in the Colonies, 
54. 

"Society of the Woman of the 
Wilderness," 377. 

South Bend, Indiana, 228. 

South Carolina Cedes Land, 192. 

South Carolina, First Railroad 
in, 275. 

South Pass in the Rocky Moun- 
tains, 348. 

Southwestern Boundary Line, 
Expansion of the, 188. 



4G0 



INDEX 



Spain in Cuba, 439-450. 

Spain Loses Hispaniola and Ja- 
maica, 85. 

Spain on the Northwest Coast, 
301, 304. 

Spain Yields the Floridas, 218. 

Spanish Boundary Line of 1783, 
82. 

Spanish Colonial Rule in Amer- 
ica, 34. 

Spanish Mexico Invaded, 213. 

Spanish on the Southern Border, 
188. 

Spanish Rule in California, 324- 
330. 

Spanish, Spread of, in America, 
29. 

Spener, Philipp Jakob, 377. 

"Spoils" in Contracts, 372. 

Spotswood, Expedition of, 69. 

''Squatter Sovereignty," 353. 

Stanford, Leland, 369. 

State Banks, 284. 

State Rights and the Union, 249. 

States, Jefferson's Proposed, 85. 

St. Clair, Arthur, Governor of 
Northwest Territory, 119, 122, 
125, 133, 135. 

St. Clair, Voyage of the, 271. 

St. Joseph River, 228. 

St. Louis, Missouri, 193, 210, 212, 
223, 226, 235, 262, 355, 363, 367. 

St. Mary's River, 190. 

Steamboat Disasters, 274. 

Steamboat, Invention of, 170-173. 

Steamboat Traffic in the Middle 
West, 272-276. 

Stephens, Fort, 191. 

Steuben, Fort, 116. 

Stevens, Robert L., 270. 

Street Cars, The First. 421. 

Stuy vesant, Peter, Surrender of, 
37. 

Stockton, Commodore, 330, 331. 

"Stourbridge Lion," The, 275. 

Stuart, Dr. David, 177. 

Sugar, Maple, 154. 

Surveys, SJ^stem of Land, 105. 

Survival of the Fittest, 10. 

Sutter, John Augustus, 327, 345. 

Sutter's Fort, 327, 337. 

Sutter's Mill, 335-337. 



Swedes Settle in North America, 

39. 
Swimmer, William, and the 

Spanish, 189, 
"Sylvania/J' Phalanx, 398, 399. 
Symmes City, 125. 
Symmes, John Cleves, 119, 124, 

125. 
Symmes Purchase, The, 112, 159. 

Taylor, Zachariah, 299, 330. 

Telegraph across Bering Strait, 
430. 

Telegraph, Magnetic, Invention 
of the, 297-299, 365, 371. 

Tennessee, Beginnings of, 87- 
100. 

Terre Haute, Indiana, 227. 

Texas, Annexation of, 301, 310- 
321. 

Thayer, EH, 357. 

Thirty Years' War, Results of, 
41. 

Thoreau, Henry, 295. 

Tiffin. Edward, 192. 

Toll Gates, 257. 

Tombigbee River, 191. 

Toscanelli, Map of, 25. 

Toussaint, L'Ouvertiure, 195. 

Township System of Land Sur- 
veys, 106. 

Trade, Influence of, on Expan- 
sion, 14. 

Travel in the Colonies,-_56. 

Tran-sc'end^ntalism, 295, 395-397. 

Transcontinental Railway, 366. 

Transportation and Unionism, 
257. 

Transportation, Improve ment 
in 421. 

Transvlvania, The State of, 98. 

Trollope, Mrs., 293. 

"Truce of God," 18. 

Turner, Prof. Frederick, Quoted, 
238. 

Turnpikes, 258. 

Tupper, Benjamin, and tlie Ohio 
Company, 109. 

Turkey, The Partition of, 448. 

Turks Block the Way to the 
East, 21. 

Tyler, John, 307. 



INDEX 



461 



"Underground Railroad," 356. 
Union and the States, 86. 
Union Pacific Railroad, 368-372. 
Union through Communication, 

257. 
Unitarianism, 295, 395. 
Upper California, 323-335. 
Utali, Mormon Occupation of, 

413, 414. 
Utopia, Seeking, in America, 

376-401. 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 302. 

Vancouver Island, 308, 338. 
Vevay, Indiana, 247. 
Vincennes, Indiana, 97, 133, 210, 

226, 227. 
Virginia Militaiy District, 114, 

125, 126. 
"Virginius," The, 440. 

Wabash Canal, The, 268. 

Wabash River, 227. 

Wakarusa, Kansas, 357, 360. 

Waldenses in America, 45. 

"Walk-in-the- Water," The, 273. 

Walloons in America, 45. 

War of 1812, Lack of Roads in, 
253. 

War Threatened over Oregon, 
308. 

Washington City, Early Appear- 
ance of, 184. 

Washington City, Plan of, 179. 

Washington County, Ohio, 
Formed, 122. 

Washington, Fort, 116, 125. 

Washington, George, 75, 89, 146, 
165, 168, 170, 175, 180. 



Wayne's Treaty, 135. 
Webster, Daniel, 306. 
Webster, Pelatiah, Quoted, 246. 
Weddings, Pioneer, 157. 
Well-Being, Increase of, 419- 

428. 
Welsh in America, 46. 
Western Reserve College, 160. 
Western Reserve, Connecticut, 

114, 128. 
Western Trend of Expansion, 14. 
West Florida, 106, 198, 216. 
Westport and the Oregon Trail, 

307. 
Wheeling, 116, 136. 
Whipple, Commodore, 145, 271. 
Whitefield, Preaching of, 50. 
Whitman, Rev. Marcus, 305- 

307. 
Whitney, Asa, 366, 368. 
Whitney, Eli, 173. 
"Wild-Cat*" Banks, 284. 
Wilderness Road, The, 97. 
Wilkinson, Gen. James, 190, 205, 

207. 
Wilkinson, Jemima, 378. 
Whittier, John G., 358, 361, 407. 
Woman's Rights Reform, 409, 

410. 
Wright, Fanny, 391, 392, 410. 

Yale University, 161. 
Yerba Buena, 324. 
Young, Brigham, 413-416. 

Zane's Trace, 116, 251. 
Zinzendorf, Count, 381. 
Zion, The Mormon City of, 413. 
Zoar, Ohio, 384-386. 



■J'j! 



